E  POUGET 


WITH  INTRODUCTION 

jsy^ 
ARTURO  GIQVANNITTI 


ACO 


535 


SABOTAGE 


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SABOTAGE 


BY 


EMILE  POUGET 
// 

TRANSLATED   FKOM    THE    FRENCH,    WITH   AN    INTRODUCTION    BY 

ARTURO   M.   GIOVANNITTI 


CHICAGO 

CHARLES   H.    KERR    &   COMPANY 
118  WEST  KINZIE  STREET 


Copyright   1913 
By  CHARLES  H.  KERR  &  COMPANY 


JOHN    F.   HIGGINS 

PRINTER  AND   BINDER 


376-382    MONROE  STREET 
CHICAGO.      ILLINOIS 


PUBLISHERS'  NOTE. 


The  national  convention  of  the  Socialist  Party 
of  America  in  1912  included  in  the  party  con- 
stitution the  now  famous  "Section  Six,"  provid- 
ing that  "any  member  who  opposes  political  ac- 
tion or  advocates  crime,  sabotage  or  other  meth- 
ods of  violence  as  a  weapon  of  the  working  class 
to  aid  in  its  emancipation,  shall  be  expelled  from 
membership  in  the  party."  By  a  referendum 
vote  the  party  decided  to  strike  out  the  clause  in 
which  the  word  "sabotage"  appears.  Unfor- 
tunately, the  clause  as  presented  by  the  conven- 
tion was  adopted  at  the  same  time.  The  mean- 
ing of  this  is  simply  that  a  majority  of  the  mem- 
bership was  confused  over  the  whole  question 
and  did  not  know  how  to  vote. 

The  enforcement  of  the  clause  is  in  the  hands 
of  the  separate  locals,  and  the  discussion  of  the 
subject  is  marked  by  heat  rather  than  light.  In 
view  of  this,  the  managers  of  this  co-operative 
publishing  house  believe  it  will  be  a  service  to 


6  PUBLISHERS'  NOTE 

the  party  to  circulate  a  book  which  explains  the 
actual  meaning  of  sabotage  as  understood  by 
those  who  advocate  it.  Our  view  of  the  attitude 
which  the  Socialist  Party  should  maintain  on  this 
question  is  accurately  expressed  in  a  resolution 
unanimously  adopted  by  the  same  convention 
which  gave  birth  to  <7Section  Six."  It  is  this: 

"That  the  party  has  neither  the  right  nor  the 
desire  to  interfere  in  any  controversies  which 
may  exist  within  the  labor  union  movement  over 
questions  of  form  of  organization  or  technical 
methods  of  action  in  the  industrial  struggle,  but 
trusts  to  the  labor  organizations  themselves  to 
solve  these  questions." 

We  might  stop  here.  But  one  thing  more 
needs  to  be  said.  Whether  sabotage  is  advisable 
is  a  comparatively  unimportant  question,  and  a 
question  which  each  labor  union  must  and  will 
settle  for  itself.  The  big  question  is  whether 
the  Socialist  Party  is  deliberately  to  attack  the 
unions  which  aim  at  the  overthrow  of  capitalism, 
and  set  itself  to  woo  the  officials  of  the  reaction- 
ary unions  whose  confessed  aim  is  to  leave  capi- 
talism undisturbed  provided  only  they  can  get 
good  wages  and  safe  jobs  for  their  own  members. 

This  is  the  issue  within  the  Socialist  Party. 
It  is  not  yet  clearly  understood  by  a  majority  of 


PUBLISHERS'  NOTE  7 

the  membership.  When  it  comes  to  be  clearly 
understood,  all  who  care  for  the  principles  of 
Socialism  will  take  their  stand  with  the  revolu- 
tionary unions.  If  by  any  chance  those  who 
care  more  for  public  office  than  for  Socialism 
should  .succeed  in  driving  the  revolutionists  out 
of  the  party,  its  usefulness  to  the  Socialist  move- 
ment will  be  gone  and  its  days  will  be  numbered. 
A  far  more  probable  outcome  is  a  union  between 
our  Socialist  politicians  and  the  Progressives. 
There  lies  an  easy  road  to  office  for  those  to 
whom  office-holding  is  an  ideal.  c,  H.  K. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  SOUTHERN  CA'JFOrjJSA  LIBRARY 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 
INTRODUCTION 11 

I.     ORIGIN  OF  SABOTAGE 37 

II.     THE  LABOR  MARKET 59 

III.  TriE  RICH  MAN'S  MORALS  AND  THE 

POOR  MAN'S  VICES 66 

IV.  TJ  PIERCE  THE  GOLDEN  CUIRASS....     74 
V.     THE  VARIOUS  METHODS  OF  SABOTAGE.     92 

VI.     PROLETARIAN    SABOTAGE    AND    CAPI- 
TALISTIC SABOTAGE..  .104 


INTRODUCTION 


I. 

Of  all  the  words  of  a  more  or  less  esoteric 
taste  which  have  been  purposely  denaturalized 
and  twisted  by  the  capitalist  press  in  order  to 
terrify  and  mystify  a  gullible  public,  "Direct 
Action"  and  "Sabotage"  rank  easily  next  to 
Anarchy,  Nihilism,  Free  Love,  Neo-Malthu- 
sianism,  etc.,  in  the  hierarchy  of  infernal  in- 
ventions. 

To  be  sure,  the  capitalist  class  knows  full 
well  the  exact  meaning  of  these  words  and 
the  doctrines  and  purposes  behind  them,  but 
it  is,  of  course,  its  most  vital  interest  to  throw 
suspicion  on  and  raise  popular  contempt  and 
hatred  against  them  as  soon  as  they  begin  to 
appear  and  'before  they  are  understood,  for 
the  purpose  of  creating  an  antagonistic  envi- 
ronment to  them  and  thus  check  the  growth 
of  their  propaganda. 

American  Capitalism  having  succeeded  in 
making  the  word  Anarchism  synonymous  with 

11 


12  INTRODUCTION 

disorder,  chaos,  violence  and  murder  in  the 
popular  mind — with  the  complicity  of  the 
cowardly  silence  of  so-called  revolutionists — 
it  is  now  the  turn  of  Syndicalism,  Direct  Ac- 
tion and  Sabotage  to  be  equally  misrepre- 
sented, lied  about  and  defamed. 

This  is  of  no  surprise  to  us — but  what  actu- 
ally astounds  and  appals  us  is  that  the  So- 
cialist Party,  itself  so  much  maligned  and 
calumniated  up  to  a  few  years  ago,  should 
now  come  out  to  the  aid  of  Capitalism  in  this 
ignoble  work  of  prevarication,  to  the  extent  of 
actually  taking  the  initiative  in  vilifying  and 
discrediting  these  new  theories. 

Thus  we  find  that  whilst  in  the  laws  of  no 
State  in  the  Union  is  Sabotage  classed  amongst 
felonies  or  misdemeanors,  the  Socialist  Party, 
first  in  its  National  Convention  at  Indianapolis 
and  next  by  referendum  vote,  finger-printed 
and  bertilloned  Sabotage  amongst  "crimes" 
and  made  it  a  capital  offense  against  its  canon 
laws,  punishable  by  immediate  expulsion  from 
the  rank  and  file. 

Therefore,  whilst  you  cannot  be  fined  or 
sent  to  jail  for  advocating-  Sabotage,  nor  do 
you  risk  being  excommunicated  for  heresy  by 
the  Catholic  Church,  you  can  and  will  be  ex- 


INTRODUCTION  13 

pelled  from  the  Socialist  Party,  which  claims 
to  be  the  political  wing  of  the  revolutionary 
labor  movement. 

This  can  have  but  two  explanations.  Either 
that  the  Socialist  Party  in  its  unbridled  quest 
for  votes  and  thirst  for  power  wants  to  become 
respectable  in  the  eyes  of  the  bourgeoisie  at 
any  price  and  risk,  or  that  in  utter  ignwance 
of  what  it  was  judging  and  condemning  it  was 
induced  to  believe  by  a  clique  of  unscrupulous 
politicians  that  Sabotage  is  the  French  trans- 
lation of  bomb  throwing,  assassination,  in- 
cendiarism and  all  around  hell  on  earth. 

We  take  the  latter  view  and  we  are  con- 
firmed in  our  belief  by  the  astounding  fact 
that  a  committee  of  five  has  been  selected  by 
the  Socialist  Party  to  define  Sabotage  for  the 
purpose  of  determining  what  it  is  .  .  .  after 
having  damned  it  on  general  principles. 

The  aim  of  this  pamphlet  being  precisely 
this,  we  shall  make  bold  to  offer  our  own 
definition  whilst  we  wait  for  the  response  of 
the  Solons  aforesaid. 

What,  then,  is  Sabotage  ?     Sabotage  is : 

A.  Any  conscious  and  wilful  act  on  the  part 
of  one  or  more  workers  intended  to  slacken  and 
reduce  the  output  of  production  in  the  industrial 


14  INTRODUCTION 

field,  or  to  restrict  trade  and  reduce  the  profits  in 
the  commercial  field,  in  order  to  secure  from  their 
employers  better  conditions  or  to  enforce  those 
promised  or  maintain  those  already  prevailing, 
when  no  other  way  of  redress  is  open. 

B.  Any  skillful  operation  on  the  machinery  of 
production  intended  not  to  destroy  it  or  perma- 
nently render  it  defective,  but  only  to  temporarily 
disable  it  and  to  put  it  out  of  running  condition 
in  order  to  make  impossible  the  work  of  scabs 
and  thus  to  secure  the  complete  and  real  stoppage 
of  work  during  a  strike. 

Whether  you  agree  or  not,  Sabotage  is  this 
and  nothing  but  this.  It  is  not  destructive.  It 
has  nothing  to  do  with  violence,  neither  to 
life  nor  to  property.  It  is  nothing  more  or 
less  than  the  chloroforming  of  the  organism 
of  production,  the  "knock-out  drops"  to  put 
to  sleep  and  out  of  harm's  way  the  ogres  of 
steel  and  fire  that  watch  and  multiply  the 
treasures  of  King  Capital. 

Of  course,  at  least  in  respect  to  the  first 
part  of  this  definition,  Sabotage  is  not  a  nov- 
elty. As  Pouget  says  and  proves,  it  is  as  old 
as  human  exploitation,  and  with  very  little 
effort  we  can  trace  it  as  far  back  in  America 
as  the  day  when  the  first  patriotic  and  pious 


INTRODUCTION  15 

Puritan  gentleman  bought  the  first  slave  or 
mortgaged  the  body  of  the  first  redemptioner 
to  the  greater  glory  of  his  holy  Bible  and  his 
holier  pocketbook. 

If  so,  why  is  it  that  only  since  the  Law- 
rence Strike,  Sabotage  loomed  up  in  such  ter- 
rific light?  It  is  easily  explained. 

A  certain  simple  thing  which  is  more  or  less 
generally  practiced  and  thought  very  plain 
and  natural,  as  for  instance,  a  negro  picking 
less  cotton  when  receiving  less  grub,  becomes 
a  monstrous  thing,  a  crime  and  a  blasphemy 
when  it  is  openly  advocated  and  advised. 

It  is  simply  because  there  is  no  danger  in 
any  act  in  itself  when  it  is  determined  by  nat- 
ural instinctive  impulse  and  is  quite  uncon- 
scious and  unpremeditated — it  only  becomes 
dangerous  when  it  becomes  the  translated  prac- 
tical expression  of  an  idea  even  though,  or 
rather  because,  this  idea  has  originated  from 
the  act  itself. 

It  is  so  of  Sabotage  as  of  a  good  many  other 
things.  Take,  for  instance,  the  question  of 
divorce.  To  be  divorced  and  marry  again  is 
quite  a  decent,  legal  and  respectable  thing  to 
do  in  the  eyes  of  the  church,  the  state  and  the 
third  power,  which  is  public  opinion. 


16  INTRODUCTION 

Now,  a  rich  man  having  grown  tired  of  his 
wife  (or  vice  versa,  or  both  ways),  he  properly 
puts  her  away  through  the  kind  intervention 
of  a  solemn-faced,  black-robed  judge,  and  mar- 
ries a  chorus  girl  through  the  same  kind  help 
of  a  very  venerable  and  holy  bishop.  Nobody 
is  shocked — on  the  contrary,  the  papers  are 
full  of  this  grand  affair  and  everybody  is  well 
pleased,  except  some  old  maids  and  the  regular 
town  gossips. 

The  rich  man  may  stop  here  if  he  is  properly 
mated,  and  may  go  further  if  he  thinks  he  is 
not.  He  can  repeat  this  wonderful  performance 
as  many  times  as  he  likes — there  is  no  limit 
to  it  and  it  is  done  quite  often. 

But,  if  you  should — say  at  the  third  or  fourth 
repetition  of  these  public  solemnities,  find  out 
that  they  are  all  quite  unnecessary  and  that 
the  aforesaid  rich  man  could  and  should  more 
properly  keep  his  bedroom  affairs  to  himself, 
if  you  should  venture  that  he  could  as  well 
dispense  with  judge  and  priest,  you  would  be 
howled  at  that  you  are  a  filthy  free  lover,  a 
defiler  of  the  sanctity  of  the  home,  and  so  on. 

How  do  you  explain  that?  It  is  because  the 
fact  that  a  rich  man  (he  may  be  a  poor  one 
at  that)  puts  away  three  or  four  or  ten  wives 


INTRODUCTION  17 

is  of  little  importance  in  itself,  it  is  only  when 
out  of  this  plain  everyday  phenomenon  you 
draw  the  theory  of  the  freedom  of  the  sexes 
that  the  bourgeois  jumps  up  and  screams,  for 
though  free  love  be  and  has  always  been  a 
fact,  it  is  only  when  it  becomes  an  Idea  that 
it  becomes  a  dynamic  and  disintegrating  force 
of  bourgeois  society,  in  so  far  as  it  wrests  from 
the  political  state  one  of  its  cardinal  faculties. 

Again,  it  is  a  well-known  and  established 
fact  that,  since  Bible  days,  the  practice  of  pre- 
venting generation  has  been  more  or  less  In 
general  use.  Over  a  hundred  years  ago  an 
English  clergyman,  Malthus,  came  out  with 
the  astounding  doctrine  that  humanity  was 
reproducing  itself  too  swiftly  and  in  such  alarm- 
ing proportions  as  to  impair  the  lives  and  wel- 
fare of  the  whole  race,  which  some  day  would 
have  to  devour  itself  for  lack  of  food.  Imme- 
diately there  was  loud  and  jubilant  praise  from 
the  bourgeois  camp,  where  the  new  doctrine 
was  heralded  as  a  condemnation  of  Socialism 
in  so  far  as  it  put  the  blame  of  poverty,  not 
on  the  evil  distribution  of  wealth,  but  on  the 
excessive  numbers  of  its  consumers. 

Malthus  justified  and  even  considered  as  a 
blessing,  wars,  famines,  pestilences,  earthquakes, 


18  INTRODUCTION 

everything  that  would  tend  to  check  the  growth 
of  population,  and  the  bourgeois  cheered  him- 
self hoarse.  Then,  suddenly  the  neo-Malthu- 
sian  came  out.  He  noticed  how  the  bourgeois 
families  throughout  the  world  have  an  average 
of  two  or  three  children  at  the  most  and  pro- 
ceeded to  advise  the  working  class  to  do  the 
same.  Malthus  was  right,  said  his  successor, 
but,  instead  of  slaughtering  the  living,  let  us 
reduce  the  number  of  those  that  are  to  come. 

The  bourgeoisie  had  been  doing  that  already 
for  years  in  France,  as  in  America.  Statistics 
show  that  the  lower  classes  were  innocent  of 
race  suicide,  yet  as  soon  as  the  idea  came  out 
of  the  undeniable  facts,  a  chorus  of  condemna- 
tion rose  against  it;  its  preachers  were  con- 
demned as  immoral  and  criminals,  laws  were 
made  against  them,  and  the  subject  was  ta- 
booed as  a  filthy  and  indecent  one. 

We  might  go  on  with  examples,  but  we 
must  confine  ourselves  to  our  subject.  The 
idea  we  wanted  to  convey  is  that  a  sin  is  ab- 
solvable  only  when  it  is  confessed  as  such, 
but  becomes  a  damnable  one  when  an  explana- 
tion is  found  for  it,  in  the  same  way  as  a  simple 
act  of  general  practice  becomes  a  crime  when 


INTRODUCTION  19 

a  justification  is  found  for  it  and  it  is  advo- 
cated at,  a  good  thing. 

The  fact  is  that  modern  society  rests  only 
on  appearances  and  illusions,  and  derives  its 
raison  d'etre  not  from  the  existence  or  non- 
existence  of  certain  things,  but  on  the  general 
accepted  credence  that  these  things  do  or  do 
not  exist.  Truth  becomes  a  menace  to  society 
and  hence  a  crime,  not  when  it  is  seen  and  felt 
by  personal  experience,  though  everybody  see 
and  feel  it,  but  only  when  it  is  told  and  ex- 
posed, for  then  only  it  becomes  subversive  by 
being  discussed  and  reasoned  over. 

This  is  especially  true  of  the  conditions  of 
the  working  classes.  Every  working  man  is 
poor  and  miserable,  but  only  when  he  hears 
his  woes  described  from  the  speaker's  plat- 
form or  sees  his  tragedy  re-enacted  on  the 
stage  does  he  become  conscious  of  it,  and  there- 
fore dangerous  to  the  digestion  of  his  masters. 

Hence,  the  necessity  of  agitators  and  "fa- 
natics" and  the  frantic  efforts  of  the  master 
class  to  keep  tightly  the  cover  on  the  Pandora 
jar.  That  Sabotage  has  been  practiced  more 
or  less  generally  for  centuries  they  unmistak- 
ingly  know,  but  that  it  should  be  now  told, 
explained,  justified  and  perfected  into  a  veri- 


20  INTRODUCTION 

table  weapon  of  attack  and  defense  they  cannot 
for  one  second  countenance.  For  these  gentle- 
men, there  are  no  classes  in  America.  There 
was  no  Socialism  in  America  up  to  four  years 
ago,  when  it  yelled  so  loud  that  they  had  to 
jump  up  and  bow  to  it. 

Now  there  is  no  Syndicalism,  and,  of  course, 
there  never  was  and  never  shall  be  any  Sab- 
otage except  in  the  vaporings  of  some  frothy- 
mouthed  foreign  agitators. 

It  is  the  wisdom  of  the  ostrich,  say  you.  No, 
by  no  means — it  is  the  wisdom  of  Argus  who 
sees  everything  with  his  hundred  eyes  and 
knows  that  the  only  thing  that  can  oppose  the 
spreading  of  a  truth  is  the  spreading  of  a  lie. 

II. 

This  booklet  is  not  written  for  capitalists 
nor  for  the  upholders  of  the  capitalist  system, 
therefore  it  does  not  purpose  to  justify  or  ex- 
cuse Sabotage  before  the  capitalist  mind  and 
morals. 

Its  avowed  aim  is  to  explain  and  expound 
Sabotage  to  the  working  class,  especially  to 
that  part  of  it  which  is  revolutionary  in  aim 
if  not  in  method,  and  as  this  ever-growing 
fraction  of  the  proletariat  has  a  special  men- 


INTRODUCTION  21 

tality  and  hence  a  special  morality  of  its  own, 
this  introduction  purports  to  prove  that  Sab- 
otage is  fully  in  accordance  with  the  same. 

We  shall  endeavor  to  prove  that  it  is  not  in- 
compatible with  proletarian  ethics,  either  as 
represented  by  the  tenets  of  conservative  union- 
ism or  as  codified  by  political  Socialism,  as 
Sabotage,  in  our  opinion,  can  equally  stand 
the  test  of  Mr.  Gompers'  Pentateuch  and  Mr. 
Berger's  Pandects,  if  it  only  be  given  a  fair 
trial  by  a  jury  of  its  peers  and  no  ex  post  facto 
laws  be  made  against  it,  as  was  done  at  the 
Indianapolis  Convention  of  the  Socialist  Party. 

The  first  bona  fide  admission  we  ask  from 
its  opponents  is  that  Sabotage,  whether  a  good 
or  a  bad  thing,  has  an  honest  purpose — that  is 
to  say,  that  whether  it  injure  or  not  the  capi- 
talist or  be  just  or  unjust,  wise  or  unwise,  its 
sole  aim  is  to  benefit  the  working  class.  This 
cannot  'be  denied.  The  only  injury  to  the 
cause  of  the  workers  that  has  been  laid  at  its 
doors  is  fhat  it  discredits  their  cause  before 
the  public  mind  and  that  it  debases  the  moral 
value  of  those  who  practice  it,  by  making  them 
sneaks  and  liars.  These  charges  we  shall  ex- 
amine later — just  now  we  want  to  be  granted, 
in  all  fairnes-s,  the  admission  that  we  are 


22  INTRODUCTION 

prompted  by  an  honest  desire  to  benefit  our 
class.  The  fact  that  it  is  upheld  and  advo- 
cated by  the  most  fearless  champions  of  the 
workers'  cause  throughout  the  world,  such  as 
Pouget,  Yvetot,  Herve,  Labriola,  De  Ambrls, 
Mann,  Haywood,  etc.,  all  men  who  have  proven 
by  personal  sacrifice  their  staunch  and  firm- 
loyalty  to  their  class^  takes  away  from  Sabo- 
tage all  shadows  of  suspicion  that  it  is  the 
theory  of  disrupters  and  agents  provocateurs.  It 
then  remains  to  prove  that  the  means  as  such 
is  "ethically  justifiable,"  and  this  Mr.  Pouget 
does  in  a  clear,  concise  and  masterful  way. 
However,  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  add  a  few 
remarks  in  relation  to  American  conditions 
and  the  American  labor  movement. 

Let  us  therefore  consider  Sabotage  under 
its  two  aspects,,  first  as  a  personal  relaxation 
of  work  when  wages  and  conditions  are  not 
satisfactory,  and  next  as  a  mischievous  tam- 
pering with  machinery  to  secure  its  complete 
immobilization  during  a  strike.  It  must  be 
said  with  especial  emphasis  that  Sabotage  is 
not  and  must  not  be  made  a  systematic  ham- 
pering of  production,  that  it  is  not  meant  as  a 
perpetual  clogging  of  the  workings  of  indus- 
try, but  that  it  is  a  simple  expedient  of  war, 


INTRODUCTION  23 

to  be  used  only  in  time  of  actual  warfare  with 
sobriety  and  moderation,  and  to  be  laid  by  when 
the  truce  intervenes.  Its  own  limitations  will 
be  self-evident  after  this  book  has  been  read, 
and  need  not  be  explained  here. 

The  first  form  of  Sabotage,  which  was  for- 
merly known  as  Go  Connie,  as  Mr.  Pouget  tells 
us,  consists  purely  and  simply  in  "going  slow" 
and  "taking  it  easy"  when  the  bosses  do  the 
same  in  regard  to  wages. 

Let  us  suppose  that  one  hundred  men  have 
an  agreement  with  the  boss  that  they  should 
work  eight  hours  a  day  and  get  $4.00  in  return 
for  a  certain  amount  of  work.  The  American 
Federation  of  Labor  is  very  particular — and 
wisely  so — that  the  amount  of  work  to  be  done 
during  a  day  be  clearly  stipulated  and  agreed 
upon  by  the  two  contracting  parties — the 
workers  and  their  employers,  this  for  the  pur- 
pose of  preventing  any  "speeding  up." 

Now,  to  exemplify,  let  us  suppose  that  these 
one  hundred  workers  are  bricklayers,  get  fifty 
cents  an  hour,  work  eight  hours  and,  as  agreed, 
lay  fourteen  hundred  bricks  a  day.  Now,  one 
good  day  the  boss  comes  up  and  tells  them  he 
can't  pay  them  $4.00  a  day  but  they  must  be 
satisfied  with  $3.50.  It  is  a  slack  season,  there 


24  INTRODUCTION 

are  plenty  of  idle  men  and,  moreover,  the  job 
is  in  the  country  where  the  workers  cannot 
very  well  quit  and  return  home.  A  strike,  for 
some  reason  or  another,  is  out  of  the  question. 
Such(things  do  happen.  What  are  they  to  do? 
Yield  to  the  boss  sheepishly  and  supinely?  But 
here  comes  the  Syndicalist  who  tells  them, 
"Boys,  the  boss  reduced  fifty  cents  on  your 
pay — why  not  do  the  same  and  reduce  two 
hundred  bricks  on  your  day's  work?  And  if 
the  boss  notices  it  and  remonstrates,  well,  lay 
the  usual  number  of  bricks,  but  see  that  the 
mortar  does  not  stick  so  well,  so  that  the  top 
part  of  the  wall  will  have  to  be  made  over 
again  in  the  morning;  or  else  after  laying  the 
real  number  of  bricks  you  are  actually  paid 
for,  build  up  the  rest  out  of  the  plumb  line  or 
use  broken  bricks  or  recur  to  any  of  the  many 
tricks  of  the  trade.  The  important  thing  is 
not  what  you  do,  but  simply  that  it  be  of  no 
danger  or  detriment  to  the  third  parties  and 
that  the  boss  gets  exactly  his  money's  worth 
and  not  .one  whit  more." 

The  same  may  be  said  of  the  other  trades. 
Sweatshop  girls  when  their  wages  are  reduced, 
instead  of  sewing  one  hundred  pairs  of  pants, 
can  sew,  say,  seventy ;  or,  if  they  must  return 


INTRODUCTION  25 

the  same  number,  sew  the  other  thirty  im- 
perfectly— with  crooked  seams  or  use  bad 
thread  or  doctor  the  thread  with  cheap  chem- 
icals so  that  the  seams  rip  a  few  hours  after 
the  sewing,  or  be  not  so  careful  about  the  oil 
on  the  machines  and  so  on.  But  examples  are 
not  lacking  and  we  shall  not  indulge  in  them. 
Is  this  truly  and  honestly  criminal? 

The  American  Federation  of  Labor  has  for 
its  motto :  "A  fair  day's  wage  for  a  fair  day's 
work."  Let  us  reverse  the  equation  and  we 
find  that  this  motto  also  means:  "An  unfair 
day's  work  for  an  unfair  day's  wages."  If  it 
is  not  so,  then  we  must  believe  that  the  motto 
should  be  more  appropriately  changed  as  to 
read:  "A  fair  day's  work  for  any  kind  of 
wages  whatever." 

We  would  like  to  know  what  Mr.  Gompers 
and  some  of  his  Socialist  confreres  would  advise 
their  adepts  to  do  when  they  have  their  wages 
reduced  and  have  all  means  of  redress  pre- 
cluded except  such  a  retaliation  as  this,  which,  it 
must  be  remembered  is  not  intended  to  be  a 
mere  spiteful  revenge,  but  a  direct  attempt 
to  obtain  redress. 

Would  they  advise  them  to  keep  on  produc- 
ing just  the  same  amount  as  before,  regardless 


26  INTRODUCTION 

of  their  changed  conditions?  If  so,  what  be- 
comes of  the  fairness  of  the  former  and  the 
class  struggle  of  the  latter?  They  would  both 
become. the  preachers  of  passive  non-resistance 
and  abject  resignation  and  take  away  from  the 
workers  not  only  their  natural  impulse  of  re- 
bellion, which  is  the  original  germ  of  self- 
emancipation,  but  also  the  very  dignity  of  their 
labor  and  manhood.  Sabotage,  ,in  this  case, 
is  just  the  expression  of  this  dignity  and  this 
manhood.  It  is  as  logical  as  a  punch  in  the 
jaw  in  answer  to  a  kick  in  the  shins.  If  any- 
thing, it  is  more  manly  and  more  just  be- 
cause it  is  done  under  provocation  and  it 
does  not  hit  the  boss  below  the  belt,  as  it  does 
not  take  away  from  him  anything,  robs  him 
of  nothing  and  has  no  sinister  reverberation 
in  his  family  as  a  cut  in  wages  has  in  the 
family  of  the  toiler.  This  form  of  Sabotage  is 
too  much  like  human  nature  to  need  any  further 
comment. 

This  is  not  the  case  with  the  other  kind  of 
Sabotage.  Here  we  are  confronting  a  real 
and  deliberate  trespassing  into  the  bourgeois 
sanctum — a  direct  interference  with  the  boss's 
own  property.  It  is  only  under  this  latter 
form  that  Sabotage  becomes  essentially  revo- 


INTRODUCTION  27 

lutionary;  therefore,  to  justify  itself,  it  must 
either  create  its  own  ethics  (which  will  be  the 
case  when  it  is  generally  practiced),  or  borrow 
it  from  the  Socialist  philosophy.  Mr.  Pouget 
extensively  dwells  on  this  subject,  therefore  I 
leave  it  to  him  to  explain  the  importance  of 
Sabotage  during  a  strike.  I  only  want  to 
ethically  justify  it  before  the  tribunal  of  re- 
spectable Socialists.  Now,  it  is  the  avowed 
intentions  of  both  Socialists  and  Industrial 
Unionists  alike  to  expropriate  the  bourgeoisie 
of  all  its  property,  to  make  it  social  property. 
Now  may  we  ask  if  this  is  right?  Is  this 
moral  and  just?  Of  course,  if  it  be  true  that 
labor  produces  everything,  it  is  both  moral 
and  just  that  it  should  own  everything.  But 
this  is  only  an  affirmation — it  must  be  proven. 
We  Industrial  Unionists  care  nothing  about 
proving  it.  We  are  going  to  take  over  the  in- 
dustries some  day,  for  three  very  good  rea- 
sons: Because  we  need  them,  because  we 
want  them,  and  because  we  have  the  power 
to  get  them.  Whether  we  are  "ethically  justi- 
fied" or  not  is  not  our  concern.  We  will  lose 
no  time  proving  title  to  them  beforehand ;  but 
we  may,  if  it  is  necessary,  after  the  thing  is 
done,  hire  a  couple  of  lawyers  and  judges  to 


28  INTRODUCTION 

fix  up  the  deed  and  make  the  transfer  per-1 
fectly  legal  and  respectable.  Also,  if  necessary, 
we  will  have  a  couple  of  learned  bishops  to 
sprinkle  holy  water  on  it  and  make  it  sacred. 
Such  things  can  always  be  fixed — anything 
that  is  powerful  becomes  in  due  course  of 
time  righteous,  therefore  we  Industrial  Union- 
ists claim  that  the  Social  revolution  is  not  a 
matter  of  necessity  plus  justice  but  simply 
necessity  plus  strength. 

Such,  however,  is  not  the  case  with  our  re- 
spectable comrades,  the  pure  and  simple  po- 
litical Socialists.  They  claim,  and  are  very 
loud  in  their  protests,  that  the  workers  are 
really  entitled  by  all  sorts  of  laws,  natural, 
human  and  divine,  to  the  mastership  of  the 
world  and  all  that  is  in' it,  and  in  justice  to 
them  we  must  admit  that  they  prove  it  beyond 
the  shadow  of  a  doubt. 

Now,  we  say  this:  If  the  instruments  of 
production  rightfully  belong  to  the  workers, 
it  means  that  they  have  been  pilfered  from 
them,  and  that  the  capitalist  class  detains  them 
in  an  immoral  way.  It  is  legal  for  the  bour- 
geoisie to  keep  them  in  accordance  to  its  own 
laws,  but  surely  it  is  not  "ethically  justifiable" 
from  the  point  of  view  of  our  aforesaid  com- 


INTRODUCTION  29 

rades.  If  these  instruments  of  production  are 
ours,  they  are  so  as  much  now  as  they  will  be 
a  hundred  years  hence.  Also,  being  our  prop- 
erty, we  can  do  with  it  whatever  we  best 
please — we  can  run  them  for  our  own  good, 
as  we  surely  will ;  but,  if  so  we  choose,  we 
can  also  smash  them  to  pieces.  It  may  be 
stupid  but  it  is  not  dishonest.  The  fact  that 
the  burglars  have  them  in  their  temporary 
possession  does  not  in  the  least  impeach  our 
clear  title  of  ownership.  We  are  not  strong 
enough  to  get  them  back,  just  now,  but  we 
cannot  forego  any  chances  of  getting  some- 
thing out  of  them. 

Suppose  a  band  of  brigands  swoops  down 
on  a  family  and  carries  away  all  its  belongings. 
Suppose  amongst  these  belongings  there  is  a 
powerful  Catling  gun.  Suppose  the  only  man 
who  can  operate  this  gun  is  a  member  of  the 
said  family  and  that  he  is  forced  by  the  band 
to  do  so  during  the  ensuing  scuffle.  Has  he 
not  the  right  to  break  a  spring  or  do  something 
or  other  to  the  gun  so  as  to  make  it  useless? 
By  all  means — he  has  a  double  right  to  do  so — 
first,  because  the  gun  is  his  whether  the  bandits 
have  it  or  not;  second,  because  he  is  not  sup- 
posed to  leave  such  a  dangerous  machine  in 


30  INTRODUCTION 

the  hands  of  the  enemy  when  it  can  be  used 
against  himself  and  his  own  kin. 

Now,  if  the  workers  are  the  original  owners 
of  a  factory  which  is  fraudulently  held  by  a 
gang  of  pirates,  in  their  struggles  to  regain 
control  of  it  they  are  fully  and  undoubtedly 
justified  in  spiking  there  whatever  guns  can 
be  aimed  at  them. 

If  it  is  just  and  right  to  force  the  capitalist 
to  grant  us  certain  concessions  by  withdraw- 
ing our  labor  and  remaining  inactive,  why  is 
it  not  equally  just  to  render  equally  inactive 
our  own  machines,  made  by  our  own  selves, 
especially  when  they  are  operated  not  by  the 
capitalists  but  by  the  traitors  of  our  own  ranks, 
the  scabs? 

If  tomorrow  we  shall  be  fully  justified  to 
take  away  from  the  master  class  all  of  its  in- 
dustries, why  shouldn't  we,  when  it  is  a  ques- 
tion of  life  and  death  to  us  to  win  or  lose  a 
strike,  be  entitled  to  mislay  or  hide  for  a  short 
while,  a  bolt,  a  wheel  or  any  other  small  frac- 
tion of  its  machinery? 

We  admit  that  our  attitude  is  indefensible 
before  the  capitalist  code  of  ethics,  but  we  fail 
to  see  how  it  can  be  consistently  condemned 
by  those  who  claim  the  capitalist  system  to  be 


INTRODUCTION  31 

a  system  of  exploitation,  robbery  and  murder. 
We  can't  possibly  understand  how  it  is  pos- 
sible that  we  are  fully  entitled  to  all  we  pro- 
duce and  then  are  not  entitled  to  a  part  of  it. 

III. 

Having  disposed  of  the  moral  objections  to 
Sabotage,  we  must  now  face  those  of  different 
type  of  critics,  that  is,  of  such  eminent  and 
world-renowned  theorists  of  Syndicalism  as 
Sorel,  Leone,  Michels  and  others. 

It  is  claimed  that  Sabotage  would  injure  the 
cause  of  the  workers  before  the  public  and 
that  it  would  degrade  the  moral  value  of  those 
that  practice  it.  As  to  the  first  objection  we 
may  answer  that  if  by  public  opinion  we  mean 
the  people  at  large,  these  are  and  always  will 
be  favorable  to  the  cause  of  any  class  of  work- 
ers, whatever  their  actions,  simply  because 
they  are  workers  themselves.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  we  mean  by  public  opinion  that  part 
of  the  public  which  comes  under  the  daily 
influence  of  the  press,  we  are  willing  to  say 
that  little  we  care  for  it.  The  capitalist  press 
will  never  champion  the  workers'  cause;  it 
will  never  tell  the  truth  about  them,  no  -matter 
how  nice  and  gentlemanly  they  may  behave 


32  INTRODUCTION 

and,  Sabotage  or  no  Sabotage,  it  will  continue 
persistently  to  lie  about  them.  It  is,  indeed, 
to  be  expected  that  it  will  lie  still  more  and 
more  and  distort  and  falsify  facts  ever  and 
ever  on  a  larger  scale  as  fast  as  the  workers 
become  more  revolutionary  in  their  attitude, 
and  the  labor  movement  more  conscious  of  its 
destined  end,  which  is  the  overthrow  of  the 
capitalist  system.  The  workers  must  get  used 
to  consider  themselves  absolutely  isolated  in 
their  struggles  (they  were  ever  so  in  their 
real  ones}  and  the  sooner  they  cease  to  believe 
in  the  myth  of  the  omnipotence  of  public 
opinion,  the  more  will  they  rely  on  their  own 
strength  exclusively  and  the  nearer  will  they 
be  to  their  emancipation,  which  can  be  brought 
about  only  by  themselves. 

The  other  objection,  that  Sabotage  is  repug- 
nant to  the  dignity  of  the  workers  and  it  makes 
them  cheats  and  sneaks  by  making  them  fight 
in  a  devious  and  underhanded  way  is  abso- 
lutely without  foundation,  as  Pouget  proves. 
^  It  were  well,  however,  to  add  that  Sabotage 
can  be  practiced  only  by  the  most  intelligent 
and  the  most  skillful  workers  who  know  thor- 
oughly the  technique  of  their  trade,  as  Sabo- 
tage does  not  consist  in  a  clumsy  and  stupid 


INTRODUCTION  33 

\ 

destruction  of  the  instruments  of  production, 
but  in  a  delicate  and  highly  skillful  operation 
which  puts  the  machine  out  of  commission 
only  for  a  temporary  period.  The  worker  that 
undertakes  such  a  task  must  know  thoroughly 
the  anatomy  of  the  machine  which  he  is  going 
to  vivisect  and,  by  this  fact  alone,  puts  himself 
above  suspicion. 

Moreover,  it  is  obvious  that  he  must  be 
prompted  by  a  desire  to  help  his  brothers,  that 
is  by  \unselfish  motives,  and  this  added  to  the 
fact  that  he  risks  more  than  the  others,  de- 
velops a  spirit  of  self-abnegation  and  individual 
daring  which  makes  him  quite  the  opposite  of 
the  sneaks  our  opponents  love  to  describe. 

The  saboteur,  to  illustrate,  is  exactly  like 
a  spy  in  disguise  in  the  camp  of  the  enemy. 

There  is  in  the  City  Hall  Square  at  New 
York  a  monument  to  Nathan  Hale,  a  young 
American  revolutionist  who  went  to  spy  in  the 
English  camp,  was  found  and  executed.  He  is 
considered  a  great  hero  and  held  up  as  an  ex- 
ample to  school  children. 

On  the  2nd  of  October,  1780,  the  American 
Revolutionists  hung  at  Tappan  on  the  Hudson, 
Major  John  Andre,  a  British  spy  who  was  cap- 
tured under  similar  circumstances.  Today,  on 


34  INTRODUCTION 

the  same  spot,  where  he  was  captured  there  is 
a  monument  erected  to  him — not  by  the, 
British — by  the  Americans,  by  his  own  cap- 
tureos  and  executioners. 

Now,  why  should  glory  in  real  warfare  be 
considered  a  disgrace  in  the  nobler  and  greater 
battle  for  bread  and  liberty?  Suppose  that 
during  the  Spanish-American  War  a  regular 
of  the  United  States  Army,  disguised  as  a 
Spanish  sailor,  had  boarded  the  Spanish  flag- 
ship, succeeded  in  getting  into  a  signal  tower 
and  then  proceeded  to  so  change  and  derange 
the  signals  as  to  disorganize  and  confuse  all 
the  movements  of  the  enemy's  fleet  so  that  it 
would  result  in  a  great  victory  for  his  country? 
Wouldn't  you  go  wild  with  enthusiasm  and 
pride? 

Well,  now,  for  argument's  sake,  why 
should'nt  you  admire  a  striker  who  went  as  a 
scab,  say,  to  work  in  the  subway,  and  then  by 
putting  a  red  lantern  in  the  wrong  place  (or 
rather  in  the  right  place),  disarranges  and  de- 
moralizes the  whole  system?  If  a  single, 
humble  red  lantern  can  stop  an  express  train 
and  all  the  trains  coming  behind  it,  and  thus  tie 
up  the  whole  traffic  for  hours,  isn't  the  man  who 
does  this  as  much  of  a  benefactor  to  his  strik- 


INTRODUCTION  35 

i 

ing  brothers  as  the  soldier  mentioned  above 
to  his  army?  Surely  this  is  "ethically  justifi- 
able" even,  before  the  Capitalist  morality, 
if  you  only  admit  that  there  is  a  state  of  belliger- 
ency between  the  working  class  and  the  capitalist 
class. 

Saboteurs  are  the  eclaireurs,  the  scouts  of 
the  class  struggle,  they  are  the  "sentinelles 
perdues"  at  the  outposts,  the  spies  in  the 
enemy's  own  ranks.  They  can  be  executed  if 
they  are  caught  (and  this  is  almost  impos- 
sible), but  they  cannot  be  disgraced,  for  the 
enemy  himself,  if  it  be  gallant  and  brave,  must 
honor  and  respect  bravery  and  daring. 

Now  that  the  bosses  have  succeeded  in  deal- 
ing an  almost  mortal  blow  to  the  boycott,  now 
that  picket  duty  is  practically  outlawed/  free 
speech  throttled,  free  assemblage  prohibited 
and  injunctions  against  labor  are  becoming 
epidemic;  Sabotage,  this  dark,  invincible,  ter- 
rible Damocles'  Sword  that  hangs  over  the 
head  of  the  master  class,  will  replace  all  the 
confiscated  weapons  and  ammunition  of  the 
army  of  the  toilers.  And  it  will  win,  for  it  is 
the  most  redoubtable  of  all,  except  the  general 
strike.  In  vain  may  the  bosses  get  an  in- 
junction againt  the  strikers'  funds — Sabotage 


36  INTRODUCTION; 

will  get  a  more  powerful  one  against  their  ma- 
chinery. In  vain  may  they  invoke  old  laws 
and  make  new  ones  against  it — they  will  never 
discover  it,  never  track  it  to  its  lair,  never  run 
it  to  the  ground,  for  no  laws  will  ever  make 
a  crime  of  the  "clumsiness  and  lack  of  skill"  of 
a  "scab"  who  bungles  his  work  or  "puts  on  the 
bum"  a  machine  he  "does  not  know  how  to 
run." 

There  can  be  no  injunction  against  it.  No 
policeman's  club.  No  rifle  diet.  No  prison 
bars.  It  cannot  be  starved  into  submission. 
It  cannot  be  discharged.  It  cannot  'be  black- 
listed. It  is  present  everywhere  and  every- 
where invisible,  like  the  airship  that  soars  high 
above  the  clouds  in  the  dead  of  night,  beyond 
the  reach  of  the  cannon  and  the  searchlight, 
and  drops  the  deadliest  bombs  into  the  enemy's 
own  encampment. 

Sabotage  is  the  most  formidable  weapon  of 
economic  warfare,  which  will  eventually  open 
to  the  workers  the  great  iron  gate  of  capitalist 
exploitation  and  lead  them  out  of  the  house  of 
bondage  into  the  free  land  of  the  future. 

ARTURO  M.  GIOVANNITTI. 

Essex  Co.  Jail,  Lawrence,  Mass. 
August,  1912. 


SABOTAGE 

i. 

ORIGIN  OF  SABOTAGE.  ITS  EARLY  APPEARANCE. 
BALZAC  ON  SABOTAGE.  THE  ENGLISH  "Go 
CANNY."  BAD  WAGES,  BAD  WORK.  NEW 
HORIZONS.  PANIC  AMONGST  THE  BOSSES. 
AN  IMPRESSING  DECLARATION.  AN  EPOCH- 
MAKING  DISCUSSION  AT  THE  CONGRESS  OF  THE 

C.  G.  T.    TRIUMPHANT  ENTRANCE  OF  SABOT- 
AGE IN  FRANCE. 

Up  to  fifteen  years  ago  the  term  SABOTAGE 
was  nothing  but  a  slang  word,  not  meaning  "to 
make  wooden  shoes"  as  it  may  be  imagined  but, 
in  a  figurative  way,  TO  WORK  CLUMSILY  AS  IF 

BY  SABOT1  BLOWS. 

Since  then  the  word  was  transformed  into  a 
new  form  of  social  warfare  and  at  the  Congress 
of  Toulouse  of  the  General  Confederation  of 
Labor  in  1897  received  at  last  its  syndical  bap- 
tism. The  new  term  was  not  at  first  accepted  by 
the  working  class  with  the  warmest  enthusiasm 
— some  even  saw  it  with  mistrust,  reproaching  it 

1.     Sabot   means   a   wooden    shoe. 

37 


38  SABOTAGE 

not  only  for  its  humble  origin  but  also  its — ' 
immorality. 

Nevertheless,  despite  all  these  prejudices  which 
seemed  almost  hostilities,  SABOTAGE  went  stead- 
ily on  its  way  around  the  world.  It  has  now 
the  full  sympathy  of  the  workers. 

More  still,  it  has  secured  its  rights  of  citizen- 
ship in  the  Larousse2  and  there  is  no  doubt  that 
the  Academy  (unless  it  is  itself  "saboted"  before 
arriving  at  the  letter  S  of  its  dictionary)  will 
have  to  bow  to  the  word  SABOTAGE  its  most 
ceremonious  curtsey  and  open  to  it  the  pages  of 
its  official  sanctum. 

However,  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  believe  that 
the  working  class  waited  to  apply  sabotage  until 
this  new  weapon  of  economic  action  had  been 
consecrated  by  the  confederation  congress. 

Sabotage  as  a  form  of  revolt  is  as  old  as 
human  exploitation. 

Since  the  day  a  man  had  the  criminal  ability 
to  profit  by  another  man's  labor,  since  that  very 
same  day  the  exploited  toiler  has  instinctively 
tried  to  give  to  his  master  less  than  was  de- 
manded from  him.  In  this  wise  the  worker  was 


2.  The  standard  dictionary  of  the  French  language.  The 
word  is  not  registered  in  any  English  dictionary,  but  it  surely 
will  be  in  the  near  future. 


SABOTAGE  39 

unconsciously  doing  SABOTAGE,  demonstrating  in 
an  indirect  way  the  irrepressible  antagonism  that 
arrays  Capital  and  Labor  one  against  the  other. 

This  unavoidable  consequence  of  the  conflict 
that  divides  society  was  brought  to  light  three- 
quarters  of  a  century  ago  by  Balzac  in  his 
"Maison  Nucingen,"  apropos  of  the  bloody  riots 
of  Lyons  in  1831.  He  has  given  us  a  clear  and 
incisive  definition  of  SABOTAGE. 

"Much  has  been  said,"  writes  Balzac,  "of  the 
Lyons  revolt  and  of  the  Republic  shot  down  in 
the  streets,  but  nobody  has  said  the  truth.  The 
Republic  had  seized  the  movement  just  as  a 
rebel  seizes  a  gun.  The  commerce  of  Lyons  is 
a  commerce  without  courage — it  does  not  manu- 
facture an  ounce  of  silk  without  its  being  de- 
manded and  promptly  paid  for.  When  the  de- 
mand is  low  the  worker  starves — when  he  works 
he  has  barely  enough  to  live  on.  The  galley 
slaves  are  happier  than  he  is. 

"After  the  July  revolution,  poverty  had 
reached  such  a  stage  that  the  workers  raised  a 
flag  with  this  motto:  Bread  or  Death — a  flag 
which  the  government  should  have  seriously  con- 
sidered. Instead  of  that,  Lyons  wanted  to  build 
theatres  to  become  a  capital — hence  a  senseless 
squandering  of  money. 

"The  republicans  smelled  through  the  increas- 
ing misery  the  coming  revolt  and  organized  the 
spinners  who  fought  a  double  battle.  Lyons  had 


40  SABOTAGE 

its  three  days,  then  order  prevailed  again  and 
the  beggar  went  back  to  his  kennel. 

"The  spinner  who  had  up  to  then  transformed 
into  threads  the  silk  that  was  weighed  to  him  in 
cocoons,  put  fairness  out  of  the  door  and  began 
to  oil  his  fingers.  Of  course,  he  gave  back  with 
fastidious  scrupulosity  the  exact  weight — but  the 
silk  was  all  stained  with  oil  and  the  silk  market 
was  thus  infested  with  defective  merchandise 
which  could  have  caused  the  ruin  of  Lyons  and 
the  loss  of  a  goodly  share  of  the  French  com- 
merce. *  *  * " 

Balzac  had  been  careful  to  bring  out  that  the 
spinners'  sabotage  was  nothing  but  a  reprisal  of 
victims.  By  putting  oil  in  the  spindles  the 
workers  were  getting  even  with  the  heartless 
manufacturers  who  had  promised  them  bayonets 
to  eat  instead  of  bread  and  had,  so  lavishly  kept 
their  promise. 

Indeed,  when  isn't  an  act  of  sabotage  the 
equivalent  and  consequence  of  a  suffered  wrong? 

Isn't  perhaps  in  the  origin  and  causes  of  each 
act  of  sabotage  revealed  the  capitalist  exploita- 
tion which  often  reaches  to  cruelty? 

And  this  reaction  against  exploitation,  in  what- 
ever condition  it  manifests  itself,  isn't  it  even  too 
an  attitude  or  action  of  revolt — whatever  form 
it  may  take?  And  here  we  are  brought  back 


SABOTAGE  41 

to  our  affirmation  that '  sabotage  is  as  old  as 
human  exploitation. 

Neither  must  it  be  believed  that  sabotage  is 
a  product  with  a  Parisian  trade  mark.  It  is, 
indeed,  if  anything,  a  theory  of  English  im- 
portation and  it  has  been  practiced  across  the 
Channel  for  a  long  time  under  the  name  of 
"Go  cannie" — a  Scotch  expression  which  means 
literally  "Go  slow." 

An  example  of  the  persuasive  efficiency  of 
the  "Go  cannie"  is  given  by  the  periodical,  "The 
Social  Museum" : 

"In  1889  the  Glasgow  dockers  went  on  strike 
asking  an  increase  of  two  cents  an  hour. 

"The  contractors  and  stevedores  flatly  refused 
and  imported  at  great  expense  a  considerable 
number  of  farm  hands  to  take  the  place  of  the 
strikers,  with  the  conclusion  that  the  dockers 
had  to  give  up  the  fight  and  return  to  work  on 
the  same  conditions. 

"Just  before  resuming  work  their  general  sec- 
retary gathered  them  once  again  and  said:  'Boys, 
you  must  go  back  today  on  the  same  scale  of 
wages  prevailing  before. 

"  'The  contractors  have  expressed  and  re- 
peated all  their  satisfaction  for  the  work  done 
by  the  farmers  who  have  scabbed  on  us  during 
these  last  weeks.  We  have  seen  them  at  work 
and  know  full  well  what  kind  of  satisfactory 


42  SABOTAGE 

work  was  theirs — we  saw  indeed  that  they  could 
not  even  keep  their  balance  on  the  bridges  and 
saw  how  they  dropped  in  the  sea  half  the  cargo 
they  loaded  and  unloaded.  In  one  word,  we 
have  seen  that  two  of  them  could  not  do  as  much 
work  as  one  of  us.  Nevertheless,  the  bosses 
said  they  were  satisfied  with  their  labor,  there- 
fore, we  have  one  thing  left  yet;  let  us  give 
them  the  same  kind  of  labor.  Work  then  just 
like  the  farm  hands  did — they  often  pushed  their 
incapacity  to  the  point  of  falling  overboard,  but 
it  is  not  necessary  for  you  to  do  this,  of  course.'  " 

These  instructions  were  scrupulously  followed 
and  the  dockers  applied  the  "Go  cannie"  theory 
to  the  point.  •  After  a  few  days  the  contractors 
called  the  general  secretary  of  the  longshoremen 
and  begged  him  to  induce  the  dockers  to  work 
the  same  as  before,  declaring  themselves  ready 
to  grant  the  two  cents  increase. 

Passing  from  a  practical  to  a  theoretical  ex- 
ample, it  is  interesting  to  quote  a  few  pages  from 
an  English  pamphlet  published  in  1895  for  the 
purpose  of  popularizing  the  "Go  cannie." 

"If  you  want  to  buy  a  hat  worth  $2.00  you 
must  pay  $2.00.  If  you  want  to  spend  only  $1.50 
you  must  be  satisfied  with  an  inferior  quality.  A 
hat  is  a  commodity.  If  you  want  to  buy  half  a 
dozen  of  shirts  at  fifty  cents  each  you  must  pay 
$3.00.  If  you  want  to  spend  only  $2.50  you  can 
only  have  five  shirts. 


SABOTAGE  43 

"Now  the  bosses  declare  that  labor  and  skill 
are  nothing  but  commodities,  like  hats  and  shirts. 

"Very  well — we  answer — we'll  take  you  at 
your  word.  If  labor  and  skill  are  commodities, 
their  owners  have  a  right  to  sell  them  like  the 
hatter  sells  hats  and  the  haberdasher  sells  shirts. 
These  merchants  give  a  certain  value  in  exchange 
for  an  equivalent  value.  For  the  lower  price  you 
will  have  an  article  of  either  a  lower  quality  or 
a  smaller  quantity.  Give  the  worker  a  fair 
wage  and  he  will  furnish  you  his  best  labor  at 
its  highest  skill. 

"On  the  other  hand,  give  the  worker  an  in- 
sufficient wage  and  you  forfeit  your  right  to  de- 
mand the  best  and  the  most  of  his  labor,  any 
more  than  you  can  demand  a  two  dollar  hat  for 
one  dollar." 

The  "Go  cannie"  consists  then  in  systematic- 
ally applying  the  formula:  "Bad  wages,  bad 
labor."  Not  only  that.  From  this  formula 
there  are  derived,  as  a  logical  consequence, 
various  manifestations  of  the  proletarian  will  in 
conflict  with  the  capitalist. 

This  tactic,  which  is  today  widely  diffused  in 
England,  where  it  has  been  advocated  and  prac- 
ticed by  the  labor  organizations,  could  not  delay 
long  to  cross  the  Channel  and  establish  itself  in 
France — as  it  cannot  delay  to  cross  the  Alps  and 
expand  from  France  to  Italy.  Accordingly, 


44  SABOTAGE 

shortly  after  1889  we  find  its  first  manifestation 
in  France. 

The  National  Railwaymen's  Union  was  at  the 
time  engaged  in  a  campaign  against  the  Merlin- 
Trarieux  Railway  bill  which  aimed  at  depriving 
the  railway  workers  of  their  right  to  unite. 

The  question  of  answering  with  the  g-eneral 
strike  to  the  passing  of  the  bill  was  being  dis- 
cussed. 

Guerard,  secretary  of  the  Railwaymen's  Union, 
delivered  a  categorical  and  precise  speech.  He 
affirmed  that  the  Railwaymen  would  not  stop  at 
any  means  to  defend  their  syndical  liberty  and 
made  allusion  to  an  ingenious  and  cheap  method 
of  combat. 

"With  two  cents  worth  of  a  certain  ingredient 
utilized  in  a  peculiar  way" — he  declared — "it 
will  be  easy  for  the  Railwaymen  to  put  the  loco- 
motives in  such  a  condition  as  to  make  it  im- 
possible to  run  them.  *  *  * " 

This  clear  and  blunt  affirmation,  which  was 
opening  new  and  unforeseen  fields  of  struggle, 
raised  a  great  roar  and  a  deep  commotion  in  the 
ranks  of  the  employers  and  the  government, 
which  were  already  perceiving,  not  without  ter- 
ror, the  consequences  of  a  general  strike  of  the 
railway  workers. 


SABOTAGE  45 

If,  however,  with  the  declaration  of  Guerard, 
the  question  of  Sabotage  was  openly  confronted, 
it  would  not  be  exact  to  assume  that  it  had  been 
practiced  in  France  before  then. 

To  prove  this  it  suffices  to  recall  the  typical 
example  of  a  "trick"  which  has  remained  famous 
in  telegraphic  centers.  Towards  1881,  the 
operators  of  the  central  office,  dissatisfied  with 
the  wage  scale  for  night  overtime,  sent  up  a 
petition  to  the  minister  of  Post  and  Telegraphs 
of  that  time,  M.  Cochery,  asking  for  ten  francs 
instead  of  five  which  they  were  then  paid  for 
work  ranging  from  six  p.  m.  to  seven  a.  m. 

They  vainly  waited  a  few  days  for  an  answer 
from  the  administration,  and  having  been  in- 
formed that  it  would  never  come,  a  sullen  agita- 
tion and  anger  began  to  circulate  amongst  them. 

A  strike  being  impossible,  they  resorted  to  a 
trick. 

One  fine  morning  Paris  awoke  to  find  out  that 
all  telegraphic  connections  were  cut  off.  (Tele- 
phones had  not  yet  been  installed.)  This  con- 
tinued for  four  or  five  days. 

The  higher  personnel  of  the  administration 
with  engineers  and  numerous  squads  of  fore- 
men and  mechanics  invaded  the  central  office  to 
inspect  minutely  every  apparatus,  battery  wire, 


46  SABOTAGE 

etc.,  from  the  front  door  to  the  cellar,  but, 
strange  enough,  they  could  not  find  the  cause  of 
the  trouble. 

Five  days  after  this  memorable  and  wonderful 
"accident,"  a  notice  from  the  administration  in- 
formed the  operators  that  from  that  day  on  the 
night  service  would  be  paid  ten  francs  instead 
of  five. 

They  had  not  asked  for  more.  "The  next 
day  all  the  lines  were  again  buzzing  as  by  magic. 
The  authors  of  the  miraculous  trick  were  never 
found  out  by  the  administration  which,  if  it 
guessed  the  motive,  was  never  able  to  guess  the 
means  employed."3 

The  die  was  now  cast. 

/  "Sabotage,"  which  up  to  that  time  had  been 
applied  unconsciously  and  instinctively  by  the 
workers,  with  the  popular  name  which  has  re- 
mained attached  to  it  begins  in  1895  to  receive 
its  baptism,  its  theoretical  consecration  and  to 
take  its  place  amongst  the  other  means  of  social 
warfare,  recognized,  approved,  advocated  and 
s,  practiced  by  the  labor  unions. 

In  1897  the  Confederation  Congress  was  held 
at  Toulouse.  The  Prefect  of  the  Seine  had  re- 


3.     Le  Travailleur  des  P.  P.  T.,  Sept.,  1895. 


SABOTAGE  47 

fused  to  the  delegates  of  the  Municipal  Workers' 
Union  the  leave  they  were  asking  in  order  to  at- 
tend the  Congress.  The  federated  unions  of 
the  Seine  justly  protested,  qualifying  this  denial 
as  an  open  attack  on  the  right  to  organize. 

The  impeachment  of  the  Prefect  was  called 
for  during  a  session  of  the  Congress  and  a  vote 
of  censure  against  him  was  immediately  and 
unanimously  taken.  One  of  the  delegates  (who 
was  none  other  than  Emile  Pouget),  remarked 
that  the  Prefect  would  not  care  a  fig  for  the 
censure  and  protest  of  the  workers  and  added : 

"Instead  of  protesting,  it  were  much  better 
to  resort  to  action.  Instead  of  bending  our 
heads  to  the  orders  and  injunctions  of  the  rul- 
ing classes,  it  would  be  much  more  effective  to 
retaliate.  Why  not  answer  a  slap  with  a  kick?" 
And  Emile  Pouget  added  that  his  remarks  were 
derived  from  a  tactic  of  combat  which  the  Con- 
gress would  be  called  to  pass  on  in  a  short  while. 
He  cited  on  this  score  the  emotion  and  fright 
with  which  the  capitalist  world  had  been  stricken 
when  Comrade  Guerard  had  declared  that  the 
ridiculous  sum  of  two  cents,  intelligently  spent, 
would  have  been  sufficient  to  enable  a  railway 
man  to  stop  and  put  out  of  running  condition  a 


48  SABOTAGE 

whole  train  propelled  by  powerful  engines — and 
concluded  with  this  proposition: 

"The  Congress,  considering  as  superfluous  any 
blame  to  the  Government,  which  merely  exer- 
cises its  natural  functions,  invites  the  municipal 
workers  to  produce  one  hundred  thousand  francs 
of  damage  to  the  service  in  order  to  reward  the 
Prefect  for  his  veto." 

This  declaration  of  Pouget  exploded  like  a 
bomb.  At  first  there  'was  a  great  stupefaction 
amongst  the  delegates  themselves,  who  did  not 
immediately  grasp  the  purposely  fearless  and 
challenging  meaning  of  the  proposition — then 
many  protested.  A  pure  and  simple  resolution 
buried  the  proposition. 

But  what  did  it  matter?  Its  aim  had  been 
reached ;  the  attention  of  the  Congress  had  been 
called  to  this  subject,  discussion  was  opened  and 
reflection  sharpened. 

Thus  the  report  that  the  committee  on  Boy- 
cott and  SABOTAGE  submitted  some  days  later  to 
the  Assembly  was  received  with  the  greatest 
and  most  helpful  sympathy. 

In  the  said  report,  after  having  defined  and 
explained  SABOTAGE,  the  Committee  added :  "Up 
to  now  the  workers  Have  confirmed  their  revo- 
lutionary attitude,  but  most  of  the  time  they 


SABOTAGE  49 

have  remained  on  purely  theoretical  ground. 
They  have  worked  for  the  diffusion  of  the  idea 
of  emancipation  and  elaborated  a  plan  of  future 
society  from  which  human  exploitation  is  elim- 
inated. But  why,  along  with  this  educational 
and  unquestionably  necessary  propaganda,  was 
nothing  done  or  tried  to  resist  the  counter  at- 
tacks of  the  capitalists,  so  as  to  render  less  hard 
to  the  workers  the  greedy  demands  of  their 
employers?  Our  meetings  always  adjourn  with 
the  cry  of  'Long  live  the  Social  Revolution' — a 
cry  that  is  very  far  from  materializing  in  any 
way  whatever.  It  is  indeed  to  be  deplored  that 
our  congresses,  while  they  always  reaffirm  their 
revolutionary  standing,  have  not  yet  elaborated 
any  practical  revolutionary  means  and  methods 
out  of  the  orbit  of  words,  and  entered  the  field  of 
action.  Of  things  revolutionary,  so  far,  we  have 
as  yet  'found  and  applied  only  the  strike — and  it 
is  the  strike  alone  that  we  continually  resort  to. 
Now  this  committee  believes  that  there  are  other 
means  besides  the  strike  whereby  we  can  check- 
mate  the  capitalists." 

One  of  these  means  is  the  boycott — only  the 
committee  argued  that  it  was  insufficient  against 
the  manufacturer.  It  was  necessary,  therefore, 


50  SABOTAGE 

to  find  something  else.  And  here  sabotage  ap- 
pears. 

We  quote  from  the  same  report  that  "this 
tactic  comes  from  England,  where  it  has  ren- 
dered a  great  service  in  the  struggle  of  the 
English  workers  against  their  masters." 

And  here  the  committee,  after  having  quoted 
from  the  pamphlet  for  the  popularization  of  the 
"Go  cannie,"  which  we  have  referred  to  above, 
continued : 

"It  is  left  to  define  under  what  aspects  we  can 
recommend  SABOTAGE  to  the  French  workers  and 
how  they  can  ultimately  put  it  in  practice.  We 
all  know  that  the  employing  manufacturers  in 
order  to  increase  our  slavery  always  select  those 
moments  in  which  it  is  most  difficult  for  us  to 
resist  their  compulsion.  Being  unable  to  strike 
under  conditions  of  extreme  misery  and  disor- 
ganization the  workers  must  often  bow  their 
heads  and  submit.  With  sabotage,  instead,  they 
are  no  longer  at  the  mercy  of  their  bosses — they 
are  no  more  a  heap  of  nerveless  flesh  to  be 
trampled  upon  with  impunity.  They  have  found 
a  means  whereby  they  can  affirm  their  own 
virility  and  prove  to  their  oppressors  that  even 
the  toilers  are  men. 

"On  the  other  hand  sabotage  is  not  as  new 
as  it  would  appear  at  first  sight. 

"Since  the  world  began  the  workers  have  ap- 
plied it  individually,  in  spite  of  a  lack  of  method. 


SABOTAGE  51 

By  sheer  instinct  they  have  always  slackened 
their  output,  when  the  employer  augmented  his 
requirements.  Without  even  being  conscious  of 
it,  every  worker  more  or  less  realizes  the  watch- 
word of  sabotage:  'For  bad  wages,  bad  work.' 
It  can  be  said  that  in  many  industries  that  the 
substitution  of  piece  work  for  day  work  is  prin- 
cipally due  to  sabotage.  If  this  tactic  has  already 
brought  practical  results,  what  will  it  not  bring 
the  day  when  it  shall  have  become  an  organized 
menace  ? 

"Nor  must  it  be  assumed  that  the  bosses,  by 
substituting  piece  work  for  day  work,  have  in- 
sured themselves  against  sabotage.  This  tactic 
is  by  no  means  limited  to  work  by  the  day — it 
can,  in  fact,  be  equally  applied  to  piece  work. 
Only  in  this  case,  the  line  of  action  is  different. 

"To  reduce  the  output  would,  of  course,  mean 
to  reduce  the  wages — therefore,  sabotage  must 
be  applied  to  the  quality  rather  than  the  quantity 
of  products. 

"In  this  way  the  worker  not  only  does  not  re- 
turn to  the  employer  a  labor  effort  greater  than 
the  wages  he  gets,  but  will  also  strike  at  his 
trade  (customers),  which  is  the  only  thing  that 
allows  the  employer  to  indefinitely  enlarge  his 
capital — the  basis  of  exploitation  of  the  work- 
ing class. 

"By  this  method  the  exploiter  will  be  forced 
to  capitulate  and  either  grant  the  demand  of  the 
workers  or  surrender  the  instruments  of  pro- 
duction into  the  hands  of  their  sole  legitimate 


52  SABOTAGE 

owners.  Two  instances  of  piece  work  we  are 
generally  confronted  with:  the  case  in  which 
work  is  done  at  home  with  tools  supplied  by 
the  worker  himself,  and  the  other  when  work 
is  performed  in  the  employer's  shop  where  the 
tools  and  machines  belong  to  the  boss  himself. 

"In  the  latter  case,  to  sabotage  on  the  goods 
can  be  added  sabotage  on  the  instruments  of  pro- 
duction. 

"And  herein  is  explained  the  tremendous  emo- 
tion that  shook  the  capitalist  class  at  the  first 
announcement  of  sabotage. 

"It  is  necessary  for  the  capitalists  to  know  that 
the  worker  will  not  respect  the  machine  until  it 
has  become  his  friend  that  will  reduce  his 
physical  labor  instead  of  being,  as  it  is  today,  the 
enemy  that  steals  his  bread  and  shortens  his 
life." 

As  a  conclusion  to  this  report  the  committee 
proposed  to  the  congress  the  following  resolu- 
tion: 

"Whenever  an  open  conflict  breaks  out  be- 
tween employers  and  workers,  whether  deter- 
mined by  the  exigencies  of  the  former  or  the  de- 
mands of  the  latter,  in  case  the  strike  be  recog- 
nized as  insufficient  and  inadequate,  the  workers 
are  advised  and  recommended  to  apply  boycott 
and  sabotage — both  simultaneously — regulating 
themselves  according  to  the  aforesaid  considera- 
tions." 

The  reading  of  tKis  report  was  received  with1 


SABOTAGE  53 

the  applause  of  the  Convention.  More  than  an 
approval,  it  met  with  veritable  enthusiasm.  All 
the  delegates  were  conquered — not  a  single  dis- 
cordant voice  was  raised  to  criticize  or  make  a 
single  objection,  or  observation  whatever. 

The  delegate  of  the  Federation  of  Printing 
Trades  was  not  amongst  the  less  enthusiastic. 
He  approved  unreservedly  the  proposed  tactics 
and  made  it  plain  in  precise  terms,  of  which  we 
have  but  this  cold  record  in  the  minutes  of  the 
Congress : 

"All  means  are  good  in  order  to  win.  I  may 
add  that  there  are  quite  a  number  of  them 
whereby  we  can  reach  our  goal — easy  to  apply, 
provided  it  is  done  with  care  and  ability.  I 
mean  to  say  with  these  words  that  there  are 
things  that  must  be  done  but  not  spoken  of. 
You  understand  me. 

"I  know  that  if  I  were  more  explicit  I  would 
be  asked  whether  I  have  the  right  to  do  this  or 
that  thing — but  if  we  continue  to  do  only  what 
we  are  allowed  to  do,  we  will  never  come  to 
anything. 

"Once  a  revolutionary  method  is  adopted  it  is 
necessary  to  have  courage.  And  when  the  head 
has  gone  through,  the  whole  body  must  also  be 
pulled  through." 

The  warmest  applause  underscored  the  speech 
of  the  delegate  of  the  Printing  Trades,  and 


54  SABOTAGE 

several  commending  remarks  by  various  speakers 
the  following  motion  was  introduced  and  carried 
unanimously : 

"The  Syndicate  of  Commercial  Employes  in- 
vites the  Congress  to  vote  by  acclamation  the 
conclusions  of  the  committee's  report  on  sabotage 
and  to  put  them  in  practice  on  the  first  occasion 
that  presents  itself." 

The  christening  of  SABOTAGE  could  not  have 
been  more  propitious.  And  it  was  not  a 
momentary  success  or  a  fire  of  straw,  in  conse- 
quence of  a  passing  enthusiasm,  for  the  unan- 
imous sympathy  with  which  sabotage  was  re- 
ceived, was  never  again  denied  to  it. 

In  the  succeeding  congress  of  Rennes,  in  1898, 
these  tactics  were,  in  fact,  again  unanimously 
endorsed. 

Amongst  the  various  speakers  that,  in  the 
course  of  the  debate,  sustained  sabotage,  we  cite 
the  mechanic  Lanche,  today  a  deputy  from  Paris. 
He  expressed  the  happy  satisfaction  of  the  Me- 
chanics' Union  of  the  Seine  which  he  repre- 
sented at  the  resolutions  passed  at  the  Toulouse 
Congress  in  favor  of  b9ycott  and  SABOTAGE. 

The  delegate  of  the  Cooks'  Federation  made 
quite  a  big  hit  when  he  humorously  related  the 
following  case  of  sabotage : 


SABOTAGE  55 

"The  cooks  of  a  great  Parisian  cafe,  having 
some  unsettled  grievances  with  their  employers, 
remained  the  whole  day  at  their  places  before  the 
red  hot  stoves — but  in  the  rush  hours  when 
clients  were  swarming  the  dining  rooms,  nothing 
was  found  in  the  pots  but  stones  that  had  been 
boiling  for  hours,  together  with  the  *  *  * 
restaurant  clock." 

We  believe  it  opportune  to  quote  the  following 
passages  from  the  report  that  closed  the  discus- 
sion and  which  was  unanimously  adopted: 

"The  Committee  wishes  to  emphasize  that 
sabotage  is  not  a  new  tactic.  The  capitalists 
practice  it  any  time  they  find  that  it  pays. 

"It  is  sufficient  to  mention  the  private  and 
public  contractors,  who  never  keep  their  agree- 
ment to  furnish  first  class  material.  Besides,  are 
not  the  reductions  of  wages  that  the  bosses  from 
time  to  time  impose  on  their  employes  a  sabotage 
on  the  stomachs  of  the  workers? 

"We  have  already  demonstrated  how  the 
worker  instinctively  answers  to  the  heartless 
capitalist  by  reducing  production,  that  is,  render- 
ing a  work  proportionate  to  the  scarcity  of 
wages. 

"It  is  well  that  the  workers  realize  that  sabot- 
age, in  order  to  become  a  powerful  weapon,  must 
be  practiced  with  method  and  intelligence. 

"It  is  often  sufficient  to  merely  threaten  it  to 
obtain  useful  results. 

"This  Congress  cannot  enter  into  particulars 


56  SABOTAGE 

as  to  its  application.  These  particulars  must 
issue  from  the  temperament  and  initiative  of 
each  one  of  you  and  are  subordinate  to  the 
various  industries.  We  can  only  lay  down  the 
principle  and  wish  that  sabotage  enter  the  ar- 
senal of  proletarian  warfare  against  capitalism 
alongside  of  the  strike;  and  that  the  attitude  of 
the  social  movement  assume  an  increasing 
tendency  towards  individual  and  collective  direct 
action  and  realize  a  greater  consciousness  of  its 
own  personality." 

For  a  third  and  last  time  sabotage  met  the 
battle  fire  of  a  Congress — in  1900  at  the  Con- 
federation Convention  at  Paris. 

It  was  then  an  agitated  and  troubled  period. 
Under  the  influence  of  Millerand,  Minister  of 
Commerce,  a  deviation  had  taken  place  which 
had  its  origin  in  the  allurement  of  political 
power.  Many  militants  had  been  lured  by  the 
corrupting  fascination  of  ministerialism  and 
several  labor  organizations  had  been  swerved 
towards  a  policy  of  "social  peace"  which,  had  it 
gained  the  upper  hand,  would  have  proved  fatal 
to  the  syndicalist  movement.  The  open  antagon- 
ism of  the  revolutionary  syndicalists  was  daily 
becoming  more  pronounced.  Of  this  internecine 
struggle,  the  discussion  and  vote  on  sabotage 
were  one  of  the  first  embryonic  manifestations. 


SABOTAGE  57 

The  debate  was  short.  After  several  speakers 
all  in  favor  of  sabotage,  a  voice  was  raised  to 
condemn  it.  It  was  the  chairman  of  the  Con- 
gress himself.  He  declared  that  if  he  "did  not 
have  the  honor  of  presiding  he  would  have  op- 
posed sabotage,  which  he  considered  more  harm- 
ful than  useful  to  the  workers  and  repugnant  to 
the  dignity  of  many  of  them."  To  justly  value 
this  condemnation  it  is  sufficient  to  note  that 
some  weeks  later  it  did  not  offend  the  "dignity" 
of  this  immaculate  moralist  to  accept,  thanks  to 
the  good  office  of  Minister  Millerand,  a  fat  gov- 
ernmental sinecure.4 

The  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Sabotage 
was  an  adversary.  He  expressed  himself  in 
these  terms: 

"I  must  make  a  statement  about  sabotage.  It 
will  be  frank  and  clean  cut.  I  admire  those  who 
have  the  courage  to  sabot  an  exploiter.  I  must, 
indeed,  add  that  I  have  often  laughed  at  the 
merry  tales  that  are  told  about  sabotage.  But, 
I,  for  my  part,  could  not  dare  do  what  our 
friends  have  often  done. 

"The  conclusion  is  that  if  I  have  not  the  cour- 
age to  carry  out  a  certain  thing,  it  would  be 

4  We  refer  to  Mr.  Treich,  then  secretary  of  the  Bourse  du 
Travail  (Central  Union)  of  Limoges  and  a  fiery  Guesdist,  since 
appointed  a  Receiver  of  the  Register  (County  Clerk)  at  Bor- 
deaux. 


58  SABOTAGE 

cowardice  to  incite  others  to  do  it.  And  I  con- 
fess that  in  the  act  of  deterioriating  or  disabling 
a  tool  or  other  things  confided  to  my  carer  it  is 
not  the  fear  of  God  that  paralyzes  my  courage, 
but  the  fear  of  the  policeman.  Therefore,  I 
abandon  to  you  the  destinies  of  SABOTAGE. 

The  Congress,  however,  gave  SABOTAGE  a  dif- 
ferent reception  than  had  been  advised.  A  vote 
was  taken,  which  gave  the  following  result: 

Favorable  to  Sabotage 117 

Contrary    76 

Blank  ballots    2 

This  clean  cut  vote  closed  the  gestatory  period 
of  the  theoretical  infiltration  of  SABOTAGE.  Since 
then  SABOTAGE,  unquestionably  accepted,  recog- 
nized and  advocated,  was  no  more  invoked  in  the 
labor  congresses  and  took  a  definite  place  in  the 
number  of  means  of  war  devised  and  practiced 
by  the  toilers  against  Capitalism. 


II. 

THE  LABOR  MARKET.    CAPITALISTIC  TRICKS  AND 
PRETENSIONS.      THE    DEMAND    FOR    LABOR 
POWER.     BELLIGERENTS  IN  PERMANENT  CON- 
FLICT. THE  CLASH  OF  Two  WORLDS.  EFFECTS 
OF  SOCIAL  "CAPILLARITY." 
From  what  we  have  already  related  in  a  con- 
densed   form   we   have    been   able   to   see    that 
SABOTAGE,  even  in  its  English  expression  of  "Go 
cannie,"  is  derived  from  the  capitalist  conception 
of  human  labor,  which  it  considers  as  a  mer- 
chandise or  a  commodity. 

All  bourgeois  economists  are  agreed  in  up- 
holding this  theory  and  they  unanimously  de- 
clare that  there  exists  a  labor  market  just  as 
there  are  markets  for  meat,  grains,  fish,  etc. 
This  granted,  it  is  but  logical  that  the  capitalists 
act  towards  the  "flesh  for  toil"  in  the  same  way 
as  they  would  act  In  buying  any  other  mer- 
chandise or  raw  material — that  is,  strive  to  ob- 
tain it  at  the  very  lowest  price  possible.  There 
is,  assuming  as  true  the  premises,  nothing  more 
normal. 

59 


60  SABOTAGE 

We  therefore  find  ourselves  confronting  the 
law  of  supply  and  demand. 

The  capitalists,  however — and  this  is  little 
understood — expect  to  receive,  not  an  amount  of 
labor  proportioned  to  the  wages  they  pa^,  but, 
on  the  contrary  a  much  greater  amount,  quite 
independent  of  the  wage  level — in  fact,  the  very 
maximum  the  worker  can  supply.  In  other 
words,  the  bosses  expect  to  buy,  not  a  given 
amount  of  labor,  commensurate  to  the  wages 
they  pay;  but  the  intrinsic  labor  power,  the 
whole  strength  of  the  worker — indeed,  it  is  the 
whole  worker  himself — body  and  blood,  vigor 
and  intelligence — that  the  employers  exact. 

Only,  when  they  expound  this  pretension,  they 
forget  that  labor  power  is  an  integral  part  of  a 
reasoning  being,  endowed  with  a  will  and  the 
capacity  to  resist  and  react. 

Of  course,  everything  would  be  nice  and 
smooth  for  the  capitalist  world  if  the  workers 
were  as  unconscious  as  are  the  steel  and  iron 
machines  whose  servants  they  are;  and,  if,  like 
the  machines,  they  had  in  the  place  of  their  heart 
and  brains,  a  boiler  or  a  dynamo. 

But  it  is  not  so.  The  workers  know  what  con- 
ditions are  made  for  them  by  the  present  social 
system — and  if  they  submit  to  them,  it  surely 


SABOTAGE  61 

does  not  happen  with  their  pleasure  and  consent. 
They  know  that  they  possess  a  certain  labor 
power  and  if  they  consent  to  let  it  to  an  em- 
ployer in  a  certain,  determined  quantity  or  for 
a  determined  time,  they  strive  that  the  said 
quantity  or  time  be  in  direct  proportion  to  the 
wages  they  receive. 

Even  amongst  the  most  unconscious  workers, 
even  amongst  those  that  never  put  in  doubt  the 
right  of  the  employers  to  exploit  them,  there 
arises  the  notion  of  resistance  to  the  voracity 
of  the  capitalist. 

The  exploiters  have  naturally  found  out  the 
workers'  tendency  to  economize  their  labor 
power — and  this  explains  why  some  of  them 
have  resorted  to  emulation  and  the  premium  sys- 
tem as  a  stimulus  to  a  larger  amount  of  work. 

The  master  masons  especially — and  at  Paris 
above  all — have  adopted  a  practice  which,  since 
1906,  has  become  quite  obsolete ;  since  the  masons 
united  in  powerful  syndicates.  This  scheme  con- 
sisted in  placing  in  each  stone  yard  and  building 
a  worker  secretly  paid  much  better  than  his 
comrades.  He  would  hustle  more  than  any  one 
else  and  it  was  necessary  to  follow  him  or  risk 
being  antagonized,  called  a  laggard,  or  dis 
charged  as  incapable. 


62  SABOTAGE 

This  behavior  demonstrates  that  the  masters 
treat  their  workers  worse  than  their  machines. 

Indeed,  the  latter  are  bought  on  a  guarantee 
of  a  certain  specified  production  in  a  specified 
running  time,  and  owners  do  not  pretend  to  de- 
mand a  larger  output ;  whilst,  when  they  engage 
workers,  they  demand  from  them,  as  we  have 
said,  the  maximum  of  their  productive  capacity 
— both  in  strength  and  skill.  This  discordance, 
which  is  the  basis  of  relations  between  workers 
and  masters,  throws  a  light  on  the  fundamental 
opposition  of  interests  between  the  two  parties — 
the  struggle  of  the  class  which  owns  the  in- 
struments of  production  against  the  class  which, 
deprived  of  capital,  possesses  no  wealth  outside 
of  its  labor  power. 

And  on  the  economic  field,  as  soon  as  ex- 
ploited and  exploiters  come  face  to  face,  we 
see  the  ineradicable  antagonism  that  drives 
them  to  the  two  opposite  poles  and  consequently 
renders  always  unstable  and  short-lived  their 
agreements.  Between  these  two  parties,  to  be 
sure,  it  is  impossible  to  close  a  contract  in  the 
precise  and  fair  sense  of  the  term.  A  contract 
implies  the  equality  of  the  contracting  parties 
and  their  full  freedom  to  act — indeed,  the 
specific  characteristics  of  a  contract  consist  in 


SABOTAGE  63 

bringing  together  two  parties  who  agree  on  and 
sign  something  to  the  real  interest  of  both  of 
them,  either  for  the  present  or  for  the  future. 
Now,  when  a  worker  offers  his  labor  power  to 
an  employer,  the  two  parties  are  far  from  being 
on  the  same  footing  of  independence  and 
equality. 

The  worker,  obsessed  by  the  urgency  of  se- 
curing his  daily  bread — if  not  already  in  the 
clutches  of  hunger — does  not  possess  the  serene 
freedom  to  act,  which  his  employer  enjoys. 
Moreover,  the  benefit  which  he  derives  from  the 
letting  out  of  his  labor  is  only  temporary,  in- 
asmuch as,  whilst  he  secures  an  immediate  gain, 
it  is  not  difficult  to  realize,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  the  risk  he  exposes  himself  to,  with  the 
sort  of  work  that  is  imposed  on  him,  may  en- 
danger his  health  and  his  future. 

Therefore,  between  the  workers  and  their  em- 
ployers there  cannot  be  any  agreements  deserv- 
ing to  be  qualified  as  contracts. 

What  it  has  been  agreed  to  call  a  working 
contract  lacks  the  specific  and  bilateral  character 
of  a  contract  proper.  Indeed,  we  confront  a 
purely  unilateral  contract  favorable  to  only  one 
of  the  parties;  in  other  words,  it  is  a  real  lion 
and  lamb  contract  in  which  the  strong  (the 


64  SABOTAGE 

capitalist)  dictates  the  conditions  to  which  the 
weak  (the  worker)  must  of  necessity  submit. 

From  this  state  of  facts  it  necessarily  follows 
that  in  the  labor  market  there  are  nothing  but 
two  belligerent  armies  in  a  state  of  permanent 
warfare.  Consequently,  all  agreements  and  all 
business  relations  between  the  two  must  be  pre- 
carious and  short-lived,  inasmuch  as  they  are 
vitiated  beforehand  by  the  graduation  of  the 
greater  or  smaller  resistance  of  the  antagonists 
on  which  they  rest. 

And  it  is  just  for  this  that  between  employers 
and  workers  there  is  never,  nor  ever  will  be 
made,  a  binding  and  lasting  understanding,  a 
contract  in  the  true  and  loyal  sense  of  the  word. 

Between  them  there  are  and  can  be  only 
armistices  which,  by  suspending  the  hostilities 
from  time  to  time,  introduce  a  momentary  armed 
truce  in  the  incessant  warfare. 

Capital  and  labor  are  two  worlds  that  vio- 
lently clash  together ! 

Of  course,  it  may — and  does — happen  that 
there  are  infiltrations  of  one  into  the  other;  by 
virtue  of  a  sort  of  social  capillarity  some  ab- 
sconders  pass  from  the  world  of  labor  to  that 
of  Capital,  even  forgetting  and  disowning  their 
origin  and  often  taking  place  amongst  the  most 


SABOTAGE  65 

intractable  defenders  of  their  new  adopted  caste. 
But  these  fluctuations  do  not  render  infim  the 
antagonism  of  the  two  classes;  on  one  side  as 
on  the  other,  the  interests  at  play  are  dian  etric- 
ally  opposite  and  this  opposition  manifests  itself 
in  everything  that  constitutes  the  warp  of  human 
existence. 


III. 

THE  RICH  MAN'S  MORALS  AND  THE  POOR  MAN'S 
VICES.  THE  DICTUMS  OF  JAURES.  THE 
WORKERS'  LOGIC.  SENTIMENTAL  DECLARA- 
TIONS. THE  BOURGEOIS'  HEART  is  His  STRONG 
Box.  THE  MORE  WE  PROGRESS  THE  MORE  WE 
SABOT.  THE  LAST  TOPPLING  DOWN. 

From  the  radical  difference,  the  persistence  of 
which  we  have  noted,  between  the  working  class 
and  the  capitalist  class,  there  is  naturally  derived 
a  different  morality. 

Indeed,  it  would  be  very  strange  if  everything 
were  different  between  the  toiler  and  the  capital- 
ist except  their  morals.  How  could  one  admit 
that  the  acts  and  attitude  of  an  exploited  work- 
man should  be  judged  and  valued  according  to 
the  criterion  of  his  class  enemy?  It  would  be 
simply  absurd. 

The  truth  is  that,  as  there  exist  two  classes  in 
society,  so  there  exist  two'  moralities,  the  bour- 
geois morality  and  the  proletarian  morality. 

"The  natural  or  zoological  morality" — writes 

66 


SABOTAGE  67 

Max  Nordau — "affirms  that  rest  is  the  supreme 
merit  and  does  not  define  labor  as  pleasant  and 
glorious  except  that  it  is  indispensable  to  mate- 
rial existence." 

But  the  exploiters  do  not  find  any  profit  in 
this  morality.  Their  interests,  indeed,  demand 
that  the  masses  toil  more  than  is  necessary  and 
produce  more  than  they  need.  It  is  because  the 
exploiters  want  to  appropriate  the  surplus 
product. 

Thus  they  have  suppressed  the  natural  moral- 
ity and  invented  another  one  in  its  stead,  de- 
veloped by  their  philosophers,  praised  by  their 
demagogues,  sung  by  their  poets — a  morality 
whereby  idleness  figures  as  the  source  of  all 
vices  and  labor  as  virtue. 

It  is  needless  to  observe  that  this  morality  has 
been  manufactured  for  the  proletarian  trade,  for 
the  rich  who  sustain  it  are  very  careful  not  to 
conform  to  it.  Idleness  is  not  a  vice,  except  to 
the  poor.  A'nd  it  is  in  the  name  of  the  dictates 
and  mandates  of  this  special  morality  that  they 
must  ceaselessly  sweat,  without  any  relaxation, 
in  favor  of  their  masters.  Whatever  slackens 
the  efforts  of  production  and  whatever  attitude 
tends  to  reduce  the  exploiter's  benefit  is  qualified 
as  immoral. 


68  SABOTAGE 

On  the  contrary,  all  that  may  turn  to  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  boss  is  loudly  glorified.  Thus 
there  are  not  sufficient  eulogies  for  assiduity  to 
the  hardest  and  cheapest  labors,  for  the  simple 
scruples  that  make  the  honest  worker ;  in  a  word 
for  all  the  ideological  and -sentimental  fetters  that 
fasten  the  wage  earner  to  the  chariot  of  capital- 
ism, more  than  an  iron  chain. 

To  finish,  besides,  their  work  of  enslavement, 
they  loudly  appeal  to  all  human  vanities.  All 
the  qualities  of  the  good  slave  are  exalted  and 
magnified  and  they  even  have  invented  a  moral 
guerdon — the  medal  or  diploma  to  labor — for  the 
most  cheerful  drudgers  who  have  distinguished 
themselves  for  the  flexibility  of  their  spine,  their 
Christian  spirit  of  resignation  and  their  fealty 
to  "the  boss." 

The  working  class  is  saturated  with  this 
scoundrelly  morality. 

From  birth  to  death  the  proletarian  is  tainted 
with  it.  He  sucks  it  in  the  more  or  less  adul- 
terated milk  of  the  nursing  bottle,  which  too 
often  replaces  for  him  the  mother's  breast.  Later 
the  vices  of  the  same  morality  are  injected  into 
him  in  careful  doses,  and  the  absorption  con- 
tinues in  a  thousand  processes  until,  buried  in 


SABOTAGE  69 

the  common  grave,  the  proletarian  sleeps  at  last 
his  eternal  sleep. 

The  poisoning  derived  from  this  morality  is 
often  so  deep  and  resistent  that  men  of  sharp 
wits  and  keen  and  clear  reasoning  are  contam- 
inated. 

This  is  the  case  with  Deputy  Jaures,  who,  to 
condemn  SABOTAGE,  has  been  infected  with  these 
capitalist-made  ethics.  During  a  discussion  on 
Syndicalism,  in  the  French  Parliament  on  May 
11,  1907,  he  declared: 

"If  it  is  a  question  of  a  systematic  and  methodi- 
cal propaganda  of  SABOTAGE,  at  the  risk  of  be- 
ing approved  by  the  conservatives,  I  do  not  be- 
lieve that  it  will  go  very  far.  SABOTAGE  is  re- 
pugnant to  the  nature  and  tendencies  of  the 
working  class. 

"SABOTAGE  is  loathsome  to  the  technical  skill 
of  the  worker,  which  skill  represents  his  real 
wealth.  And  this  is  why  Sorel,  the  theorist  and 
metaphysician  of  Syndicalism,  declares  that 
even  granting  to  Syndicalism  all  the  possible 
means,  there  is  one  that  it  must  interdict  to  itself 
and  that  is  the  one  which  might  depreciate  and 
humiliate  in  the  worker  his  professional  value — 
a  value  which  is  not  only  his  precarious  wealth 
of  today,  but  also  his  title  to  his  sovereignty  of 
the  world  tomorrow." 

The  affirmations  of  Jaures,  even  if  protected 


70  SABOTAGE 

by  the  shield  of  Sorel,  are  all  he  wants  them  to 
be — see  the  metaphysics — except  an  exposition 
of  economic  reality. 

Where  in  Christendom  has  Jaures  met  work- 
ers who  with  "their  nature  and  their  tendencies" 
break  their  necks  to  hand  their  masters  all  their 
physical  and  mental  energy,  in  spite  of  the  ab- 
surd, odious  and  shameful  conditions  which  the 
latter  impose  and  fasten  upon  them? 

On  the  other  hand  how  can  the  "technical 
value"  and  skill  of  these  hypothetical  workers 
be  endangered  when,  having  realized,  on  a  cer- 
tain day,  that  they  are  the  victims  of  an  inhuman 
exploitation,  they  strive  to  break  away  from  it 
and  consent  no  more  to  submit  their  muscles  and 
their  brains  to  an  indefinite  drudgery,  to  the  total 
advantage  of  their  masters?  Why  should  they 
scatter  this  "technical  value  and  skill  which  con- 
stitutes their  wealth?"  Why  should  they  make 
of  it  a  free  present  to  the  capitalist?  Isn't  it 
more  logical,  indeed,  that  the  workers,  instead 
of  sacrificing  themselves  like  lambs  on  the  altar 
of  capitalism,  struggle  and  rebel  and,  valuing 
at  the  very  highest  possible  price  their  "techni- 
cal skill,"  let— all  or  in  part— this  "true  wealth" 
of  theirs  on  the  very  best  terms  obtainable  ? 

To  these  questions  Jaures  has  not  made  any 


SABOTAGE  71 

answers,  having  not  gone  very  deep  into  the 
question.  He  has  limited  himself  to  declarations 
of  a  sentimental  order  inspired  by  the  exploiters' 
morality  and  which,  are  nothing  less  than  the 
criticisms  of  the  bourgeois  economists  reproach- 
ing the  working  class  for  their  extravagant  de- 
mands and  their  strikes  and  accusing  them  of 
putting  the  national  industry  in  jeopardy. 

The  Jaures  line  of  reasoning  is  indeed  of  the 
same  brand — with  this  difference,  that  instead  of 
harping  on  the  patriotic  chord,  he  tries  to  awaken 
and  goad  the  pride,  vanity  and  conceit  of  the 
over-excited  and  thoughtless  workers. 

The  Jaures  argument,  moreover,  arrives  at  the 
final  denial  of  the  class  struggle,  because  it  ceases 
to  take  into  consideration  the  constant  state  of 
war  existing  between  capital  and  labor. 

Now,  plain  common  sense  suggests  that,  since 
the  boss  is  the  enemy  of  the  worker,  the  latter 
by  preparing  an  ambush  for  his  adversary,  does 
not  commit  a  bad  or  disloyal  act.  It  is  a  recog- 
nized means  of  warfare,  just  as  admissible  as 
open  and  face  to  face  battle. 

Therefore  not  one  of  the  arguments  borrowed 
from  the  bourgeois  morality  is  competent  to 
judge  SABOTAGE,  just  as  none  of  these  arguments 
has  any  weight  and  bearing  on  the  judgment, 


72  SABOTAGE 

acts,  deeds,  thoughts  and  aspirations  of  the  work- 
ing class. 

If  on  all  these  points  one  wants  to  rightly  rea- 
son, one  must  not  recur  to  the  capitalist  code  of 
ethics  but  inspire  oneself  to  the  worship  of  the 
producers  which  is  daily  being  shaped  in  the 
heart  of  the  working  classes  and  which  is  destined 
to  regenerate  the  social  relations,  in  so  far  as 
it  is  the  proletarian  morality  which  will  regulate 
the  society  of  tomorrow. 

The  bourgeoisie,  of  course,  has  felt  itself 
struck  at  heart  by  SABOTAGE — that  is,  struck  in 
its  pocketbook.  And  yet — be  it  said  without  any 
offensive  intention — the  good  old  lady  must  re- 
sign herself  and  get  used  to  living  in  the  constant 
company  of  SABOTAGE.  Indeed  it  would  be  wise 
for  her  to  make  the  best  of  what  she  cannot  pre- 
vent or  suppress.  As  she  must  familiarize  her- 
self with  the  thought  of  her  end  (at  least  as  a 
ruling  and  owning  class),  so  it  were  well  for 
her  to  familiarize  herself  with  SABOTAGE,  which 
has  nowadays  deep  and  indestructible  roots.  Har- 
pooned to  the  sides  of  capitalistic  society  it  shall 
tear  and  bleed  it  until  the  shark  turns  the  final 
somersault. 

It  is  already,  and  shall  continually  become 
more  so — worse  than  a  pestiferous  epidemic — 


SABOTAGE  73 

worse,  indeed,  than  any  terrible  contagious  dis- 
ease. It  shall  become  to  the  body  social  of  capi- 
talism more  dangerous  and  incurable  than  cancer 
and  syphilis  are  to  the  human  body.  Naturally 
all  this  is  quite  a  bore  for  this  scoundrelly  so- 
ciety—but it  is  inevitable  and  fatal. 

It  does  not  require  to  be  a  great  prophet  to 
predict  that  the  more  we  progress,  the  more  we 
shall  SABOT. 


IV. 

To  PIERCE  THE  GOLDEN  CUIRASS.  THE  CRITI- 
CISM OF  ROCKEFELLER.  WHOM  SABOTAGE 
MUST  BE  WIELDED  AGAINST.  To  STRIKE  AT 
THE  Boss,  NEVER  AT  THE  CONSUMER.  THE 
SABOTAGE  OF  THE  PARISIAN  BARBERS.  THE 
SABOTAGE  OF  THE  FOOD  WORKERS.  THE  CRIM- 
INAL PRETENSES  OF  SOME  HOTEL  OWNERS. 
THE  "OPEN  MOUTHED"  SABOTAGE.  WHO 
SHALL  BE  BLAMED:  CRIMINAL  EMPLOYERS  OR 
HONEST  WORKERS? 

On  the  battlefield,  which  is  called  the  labor 
market,  it  is  important  that  the  belligerents  meet 
with  equal  weapons.  The  capitalist  opposes  a 
golden  breastplate  to  the  blows  of  the  adversary 
who,  knowing  beforehand  his  offensive  and  de- 
fensive inferiority,  tries  to  remedy  it  by  having 
recourse  to  the  many  ruses  of  war. 

The  worker  being  powerless  to  attack  his 
enemy  in  the  front,  tries  to  do  so  at  the  side, 
striking  him  in  this  most  vital  center :  the  money 
bag. 

74 


SABOTAGE  75 

There  happens  then  to  the  masters  what  hap- 
pens when  a  people,  which,  wishing  to  repel  a 
foreign  invasion  and  having  not  sufficient  forces 
to  meet  its  armies  in  open  battle,  adopts  the  tac- 
tics of  guerillas  and  ambuscades — a  humiliating 
fight  for  the  great  army  corps,  but  so  terrible 
and  murderous  that  often  the  invaders  refuse  to 
recognize  their  opponents  as  in  a  state  of  bellig- 
erency. 

This  execration  of  the  regular  armies  for  the 
guerrillas  does  not  surprise  us,  neither  we  are 
astonished  at  the  horror  capitalists  express  for 
SABOTAGE. 

In  truth  SABOTAGE  is  to  the  social  war  what 
guerrillas  are  to  national  wars.  It  arises  from 
the  same  feelings,  answers  to  and  meets  the  same 
necessities  and  bears  the  same  identical  conse- 
quences on  the  workers'  mentality. 

Every  one  knows  how  much  a  guerilla  war- 
fare develops  individual  courage,  daring  and  de- 
termination— the  same  may  be  said  of  SABOTAGE. 
It  keeps  the  workers  in  training,  preventing  them 
from  relaxing  into  a  pernicious  sloth — and  as  it 
requires  a  permanent,  restless  action,  it  naturally 
obtains  the  result  of  developing  the  worker's 
initiative,  of  training  him  to  act  by  himself  and 
of  stirring  his  combativeness. 


76  SABOTAGE 

Of  these  and  kindred  qualities  the  worker  is 
enormously  in  need,  for  the  boss  acts  towards 
him  with  the  same  scruples  as  those  of  the  in- 
vading armies  operating,  in  a  hostile  country. 
That  is,  sacking,  pillaging  and  plundering  the 
very  most  they  can. 

The  billionaire  Rockefeller  has  reproved  this 
capitalistic  capacity — though,  naturally,  he  puts 
it  shamefully  in  constant  practice.  "The  trouble 
with  some  employers" — wrote  the  American 
Croesus — "is  that  they  do  not  pay  the  right 
wages.  Hence  the  tendency  of  the  worker  to 
diminish  his  labor." 

This  tendency  to  a  reduction  of  labor  noticed 
by  Rockefeller  (a  reduction  which  he  justifies 
with  his  rebuke  to  the  employers),  is  nothing 
but  SABOTAGE  under  the  simplest  aspect  under 
which  it  presents  itself  to  the  intellect  of  the 
average  worker:  a  slacking  off  of  work. 

It  may  be  called  the  instinctive  and  primordial 
form  of  SABOTAGE. 

It  is  just  this  that  in  1908  at  Bedford,  Ind., 
U.  S.  A.,  was  deliberated  upon  by  some  hundred 
workers  who  had  been  notified  of  a  forthcoming 
reduction  of  wages. 

Without  saying  a  word  these  workers  went  to 


SABOTAGE  77 

a  neighboring  machine  shop  and  had  their  shovels 
cut  smaller — whereupon  they  returned  to  their 
work  and  answered  to  their  bosses:  "Small 
wages,  small  shovels."  This  form  of  SABOTAGE, 
however,  is  only  possible  to  the  day  workers. 
It  is,  in  fact,  too  evident  that  piece  workers  have 
no  interest  whatever  to  reduce  their  output,  for 
in  such  a  case  they  would  themselves  be  the  first 
victims  of  their  passive  revolt. 

The  latter  must  then  resort  to  other  means 
and  their  attention  must  be  directed  to  lower  the 
quality,  not  the  quantity,  of  their  work. 

In  relation  to  this  the  "Bulletin  de  la  Bourse 
du  Travail  de  Montpellier,"  on  the  1st  of  May, 
1900,  published  an  article  which  said  in  part: 

"If  you  are  machinists  it  will  be  easy  with 
two  cents  worth  of  emery  dust  or  even  with  a 
little  sand  to  clog  your  machine  and  cause  loss 
of  time  and  costly  repairs  to  the  boss.  If  you 
are  a  cabinetmaker  nothing  will  be  easier  than 
to  deteriorate  a  piece  of  furniture  without  your 
boss  noticing  it  at  first  sight.  A  tailor  does  not 
have  to  think  long  how  to  spoil  a  suit  or  a  piece 
of  cloth,  a  store  clerk  or  salesman  with  a  skillful 
stain  on  clothes  and  other  articles  of  wearing  will 
provoke  their  sale  as  damaged  and  imperfect 
stain  on  clothes  and  other  articles  of  wearing  will 
cause  breakage  and  upsetting  of  goods  (the  mis- 


78  SABOTAGE 

take  was  made  no  one  knows  by  whom,  and  the 
boss  loses  the  customers).  A  farm  hand  could 
once  in  a  while  make  a  mistake  with  his  hoe  or 
scythe  or  sow  bad  seeds  in  the  fields,  and  so  on." 
As  it  appears  from  this  quotation  the  applica- 
tions of  SABOTAGE  vary  to  the  infinite.  But, 
whichever  they  be,  the  workers  who  practice 
them  must  constantly  keep  in  mind  that. one  thing 
is  strictly  prohibited  to  them,  i.  e.,  whatever 
could  react  to  the  disadvantage  or  detriment  of 
the  consumer. 

'  SABOTAGE  must  be  directed  against  the  boss 
either  by  reducing  tKe  output  or  by  deteriorating 
and  making  unusable  the  product  or  by  disabling 
and  paralyzing  the  instruments  of  production — 
but  the  consumer,  we  repeat,  must  never  suffer 
by  this  war  waged  exclusively  against  the  ex- 
ploiter. An  example  of  the  efficacy  of  SABOTAGE 
is  given  by  the  methodical  application  of  it  by 

\the  Parisian  barbers. 

Used  as  they  were  to  shampoo  their  clients 
at  the  epoch  of  their  last  conflicts  they  decided 
to  extend  the  system  to  the  signs  of  their  bosses' 
shops.  By  this  system  which  in  Parisian  slang 
is  called  badigeonnage,  they  obtained  an  earlier 
closing  of  the  barber  shops  at  night  and  a  weekly 


SABOTAGE  79 

day  of  rest  by  the  general  closing  up  of  all  shops 
in  a  certain  specified  day  of  the  week.1 

The  workers  strongly  insist  on  the  specific 
character  of  SABOTAGE  which  consists  in  hurting 
the  boss,  not  the  consumer,  but  they  must  fight 
hard  against  the  lying  attitude  of  the  capitalist 
press  which  is  vitally  interested  to  distort  the 
facts  and  present  SABOTAGE  as  a  dangerous  men- 
ace to  the  public. 

Nobody  has  forgotten  the  commotion  produced 
by  the  weird  recitals  of  the  daily  papers  about 
some  bread  which  was  supposed  to  have  con- 
tained ground  glass. 

The  Syndicalists  actually  sweated  to  declare 
that  to  put  glass  dust  in  the  bread  was  simply 
a  hateful,  stupid  and  criminal  act  and  that  the 
bakers  could  not  have  even  thought  of  such  a 
dastardly  deed.  Nevertheless,  and  in  spite  of  all 
their  denials  and  denunciation  of  the  cowardly 
lies,  this  calumny  was  insinuating  itself  in  the 
public  mind,  arraying  against  bakers  public  opin- 

1.  We  do  not  believe  that  the  shampooing  or  damaging  of 
signs  constitutes  sabotage — if  it  did  even  breaking  the  boss's 
gold  watch  or  cutting  his  coat  tails  would  be  sabotage.  As  we 
understand  it  by  Pouget's  own  definition  sabotage  consists  only 
in  slackening  work  or  temporarily  disabling  the  instruments  of 
production  and  should  be  strictly  confined  to  that.  Couldn't 
the  barbers  take  an  hour  for  a  hair  cut  instead  of  half  an  hour, 
or  use  expensive  tonics  and  perfumes  instead  of  cheap  free 
bay  rum  and  so  forth?  The  workers  have  no  use  for  badigeon- 
nage — they  leave  it  to— the  suffragettes. — TRANSLATOR. 


80  SABOTAGE 

ion  and  a  great  number  of  people  to  whom  the 
dictums  of  their  paper  are  gospel  truths. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  in  all  the  various  phases 
of  the  bakers'  strike  SABOTAGE  was  strictly  con- 
fined to  the  deterioration  of  the  shops,  the  sieves 
and  the  ovens.  As  to  the  bread,  if  there  was 
baked  any  that  was  not  eatable  (either  done  too 
much  or  too  little,  unkneaded,  saltless  or  yeast- 
less  but  never  with  pulverized  glass  or  any  other 
foreign  matter),  it  was  not  nor  could  be  the 
customer  to  suffer  through  it,  but  the  boss  baker 
alone. 

It  were,  indeed,  necessary  to  believe  the  buyers 
a  mass  of  hopeless  fools  to  think  that  they  would 
accept  instead  of  bread  an  indigestible  and  nau- 
seating mass.  In  case  anyone  had  carelessly  ac- 
cepted such  a  loaf  he  would,  of  course,  have 
immediately  returned  it  and  demanded  an  edible 
one  in  exchange. 

It  may  therefore  be  assumed  that  the  story  of 
the  ground  glass  was  nothing  but  a  fanciful  il- 
lustration of  the  capitalist  argument  intended  to 
discredit  SABOTAGE  in  general  and,  in  that  in- 
stance, the  bakers'  strike. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  the  bomb  exploded 
in  1907  by  a  daily  paper  whose  specialty  is  to 
misrepresent  the  labor  movement.  This  paper 


SABOTAGE  81 

printed  that  a  drug  clerk  who  had  the  SABOTAGE 
mania  had  substituted  strychnine  and  other  vio- 
lent poisons  for  the  harmless  drugs  of  a  pre- 
scription. 

Against  these  tales — which  were  nothing  but 
shameful  lies — the  Drug  Clerks'  Union  rightly 
protested.  i 

In  reality,  if  a  drug  clerk  had  the  intention  of 
applying  SABOTAGE  he  would  never  think  of  poi- 
soning the  patients — a  deed  which  after  caus-  * 
ing  their  death  would  also  land  the  SABOTAGER 
in  jail  whilst  it  would  leave  totally  undisturbed 
the  boss  druggist. 

Instead  of  that,  the  drug  clerk  who  would 
really  SABOT  his  boss  would  know  how  to  go 
about  it  in  a  different  way;  he  would  for  in- 
stance, waste  the  chemical  ingredients  in  filling 
his  prescriptions,  or  better  still  use  the  best,  pur- 
est and  therefore  costliest  drugs  instead  of  the 
cheap  adulterated  ones  generally  in  use. 

In  this  latter  case  he  would,  moreover,  free 
himself  from  the  culpable  complicity  which  a 
drug  clerk  is  often  compelled  to  submit  to  in 
taking  a  hand  in  the  boss's  own  SABOTAGE — the 
truly  criminal  one — which  consists  in  selling 
drugs  of  the  lowest  quality,  totally  ineffective, 


82  SABOTAGE 

or  almost  so,  instead  of  the  pure  products  pre- 
scribed by  the  physician. 

It  fs  therefore  useless  to  insist  in  the  demon- 
stration that  pharmaceutical  SABOTAGE  rather 
than  being  harmful  is  indeed  beneficial  to  the 
sick. 

It  is,  in  fact,  with  these  results  and  intents — 
i.  e.,  favorable  to  the  consumer — that  SABOTAGE 
is  applied  in  many  trades— especially  by  those 
concerned  with  alimentation  and  foodstuffs. 

If  there  is  anything  to  complain  of  it  ought  to 
be  that  SABOTAGE  has  not  yet  become  a  daily 
practice  of  the  working  class  in  these  latter  in- 
dustries. 

It  is  indeed  deplorable  to  notice  how  often  the 
workers  lend  themselves  to  the  most  abominable 
tricks  against  their  brothers  and  to  the  detriment 
of  public  health  in  general,  without  their  realiz- 
ing the  great  responsibility  that  befalls  them  for 
actions  which,  though  not  within  the  criminal 
law,  nevertheless  do  not  cease  to  be  crimes. 

The  following  quotation  from  a  manifesto  the 
people  of  Paris  issued  by  the  Cooks'  Union  in 
1908,  goes  further  than  any  argument  towards 
illuminating  the  reader  on  this  subject: 

"The  head  cook  of  a  popular  restaurant  noticed 
one  morning  that  the  meat  which  had  been 


SABOTAGE  83 

brought  in  was  so  far  gone  as  to  constitute  a 
serious  danger  to  the  ones  that  would  eat  it. 
Accordingly  he  notified  the  proprietor  who  on  his 
side  insisted  that  it  be  cooked  and  served  just 
the  same. 

The  chef,  disgusted  by  such  cynical  demeanor, 
refused  to  become  an  accomplice  to  the  wanton 
poisoning  of  the  costumers,  whereupon  he  was 
forthwith  discharged  for  his  conscientious  scru- 
ples and  all  the  restaurateurs  of  Paris  informed 
of  his  dismissal.  He  was,  in  other  words,  black- 
listed. So  far  the  incident  reveals  only  a  shame- 
less act  of  an  individual  boss  as  contrasted  to  an 
honorable  one  by  an  .individual  worker — but  the 
consequences  of  that  were  so  far  and  wide  and 
revealed  such  a  scandalous  and  dangerous  solid- 
arity amongst  the  restaurant  owners  as  to  com- 
pel us  to  denounce  it. 

When  the  discharged  chef  presented  himself 
again  to  the  employment  bureau  kept  by  the 
Restaurant  Men's  Association,  the  manager  of  it 
bluntly  told  him  that  a  cook  must  not  be  con- 
cerned if  foodstuffs  are  wholesome  or  decayed, 
that  a  cook  is  not  responsible  and  therefore,  be- 
ing paid,  must  strictly  confine  himself  to  obey 
orders  and  that  finally,  his  refusal  being  unwar- 
ranted and  peremptory,  from  that  day  on  he  must 


84  SABOTAGE 

not  rely  any  more  on  the  bureau  to  get  employ- 
ment. 

Either  die  of  starvation — or  become  an  acces- 
sory to  poisoning — this  is  the  dilemma  imposed 
upon  the  workers  by  the  Restaurant  Men's  As- 
sociation. That,  besides,  means  that  the  bosses' 
unions,  far  from  decrying  the  sale  of  rotten 
meats,  hide  and  defend  such  an  infamous  traffic 
and  persecute  with  malignant  hatred  whoever 
tries  to  prevent  the  wholesale  poisoning  of  his 
fellow  men. 

This  episode,  of  course,  is  not  unique,  and  in 
Paris  as  everywhere  else  the  restaurant  keepers 
who  unscrupulously  serve  putrid  food  are  more 
than  one-^-if  not  the  rule.  On  the  other  hand 
the  cooks  that  have  the  courage  to  follow  the  ex- 
ample of  their  Parisian  colleague  are  mighty 
scarce.  The  reason  is  that  by  showing  too  much 
conscience  they  risk  being  discharged  and  black- 
listed. The  fear  of  unemployment  is  such  as  to 
paralyze  many  brains,  shake  many  good  resolu- 
tions and  check  and  muzzle  many  revolts.  This 
is  why  the  mysteries  of  the  kitchens — whether 
popular  or  aristocratic — are  never  revealed. 

And  yet  it  would  be  so  useful  to  the  consumer 
to  know  what  suspicious  foods  are  manipulated 
in  the  resorts  where  they  get  their  meals !  It 


SABOTAGE  85 

would  be  indeed  quite  instructive  to  the  average 
man  to  know  that  the  lobster  stew  he  eats  is 
made  with  the  dining  room  remains  of  the  crab 
bones  of  the  previous  day,  accurately  scraped 
out  of  their  flesh  which  still  adhere  to  them, 
beaten  in  brass  mortars  and  finally  colored  with 
a  pink  substance. 

Likewise  he  surely  would  be  glad  to  know  that 
the  filets  de  cheveau  are  but  pieces  of  abnormally- 
colored  beef,  highly  flavored;  that  to  cure  and 
"rejuvenate"  the  ill-smelling  and  rotten  tasting 
fowl  they  stick  them  with  a  red  hot  spit,  that  all 
the  restaurant  supplies  (forks,  plates,  glasses, 
etc.),  are  dried  with  the  napkins  already  used 
by  the  clients  and  so  on. 

The  list  would  be  long  and  nauseating  should 
we  enumerate  all  the  "tricks  of  trade"  of  the 
rapacious  and  shameless  business  men  who, 
perched  in  the  corners  of  their  shops,  not  only  do 
their  very  best  to  spoliate  their  clients  but  also 
often  try  to  poison  them  altogether. 

On  the  other  hand  it  is  not  necessary  to  know 
the  systems — it  would  be  enough  to  know  in 
which  respectable  establishments  such  crimes  are 
perpetrate?. 

That  is  why  it  is  to  be  hoped  and  desired  in 
the  interest  of  public  health  that  the  workers 


86  SABOTAGE 

in  that  line  of  trade  SABOT  the  artificial  and 
stolen  reputations  of  their  unscrupulous  masters 
and  thus  warn  and  put  us  on  guard  against  these 
shameless  malefactors. 

We  must  here  rapidly  observe  that  the  cooks 
have  also  the  means  for  another  type  of  SABO- 
TAGE— the  preparing  of  dishes  in  the  most  ex- 
cellent way  with  all  the  possible  and  fastidious 
care  and  attentions  and  all  the  perfections  sug- 
gested by  culinary  art  and,  in  the  popular  eating 
houses,  by  being  liberal  and  generous  in  making 
the  portions. 

From  all  this  it  clearly  results  that  for  the 
kitchen  hands  in  particular  and  the  food  workers 
in  general,  SABOTAGE  identifies  itself  with  the 
interests  of  the  consumers. 

Some  will  object,  perhaps,  t^at,  for  instance, 
the  cook  who  reveals  the  unpleasant  and  un- 
sanitary secrets  oi  the  kitchen  does  not  commit 
an  act  of  SABOTAGE  but  just  gives  a  plain  and 
simple  example  of  professional  integrity  de- 
serving commendation  and  encouragement.  If 
so  these  worthy  gentlemen  had  better  be  care- 
ful for  with  their  encouragement  they  tread  on 
slippery  ground  which  may  precipitate  them  into 
an  abyss — they  may  thus  unintentionally  and  un- 


SABOTAGE  87 

knowingly  arrive  at  a  logical  condemnation  of 
modern  society. 

Fraud,  sophistication,  lie,  theft,  fake  and  hum- 
bug are  the  warp  and  woof  of  capitalist  society ; 
to  suppress  them  would  be  equal  to  the  killing 
of  society  itself. 

It  is  useless  to  nurse  any  illusions;  the  day 
when  it  would  be  tried  to  introduce  into  social 
relations,  in  all  their  strata,  a  strict  honesty  and 
a  scrupulous  good  will,  nothing  would  remain 
standing — neither  industry  nor  commerce  nor 
finance — absolutely  nothing ! 

Now,  it  is  evident  that  to  launch  safely  his 
underhand  manipulations  the  employer  cannot 
act  alone.  He  needs  help,  which  in  this  case 
means  accomplices.  And  he  finds  them  in  his 
workers  and  other  employes.  It  follows  logically 
that,  wishing  to  associate  the  workers  in  these 
maneuvers — but  not  in  his  benefits  and  profits — 
the  boss,  whatever  the  field  of  his  activity,  exacts 
from  them  a  complete  submission  to  his  private 
interests  and  forbids  them  to  pass  any  judgment 
on  his  operations  or  to  "interfere  with  his  busi- 
ness." 

If  any  such  operation  is  fraudulent,  the 
workers  must  not  be  concerned — it  is  not  their 
business.  "Workers  and  employes  in  general 


88  SABOTAGE 

are  not  responsible.  So  far  as  they  are  paid 
they  have  nothing  to  do  but  obey,"  remarks  very 
explicitly  the  manager  of  the  restaurant  owners' 
employment  bureau. 

As  a  consequence  of  this  subtle  sophistry,  the 
worker  must  renounce  his  personality,  stifle  his 
sentiments  and  act  as  dumb  as  a  machine. 

Every  rebellion  to  the  orders  received,  every 
violation  of  the  professional  secret,  every  revul- 
sion at  practices,  to  say  the  least,  dishonest,  to 
which  he  is  compelled  to  submit,  constitutes  for 
him  a  felony  against  his  boss. 

Therefore,  should  he  refuse  to  be  blindly  and 
passively  subdued,  should  he  dare  to  denounce  the 
filthy  practices  they  want  him  to  be  part  and 
parcel  of,  he  is  considered  and  dealt  with  as  a 
mutineer  in  open  warfare  against  his  employer 
and  his  scruples  are  termed  SABOTAGE. 

This  line  of  thought,  however,  is  not  strictly 
peculiar  to  the  bosses.  Even  the  labor  unions 
consider  as  an  act  of  war  and  as  SABOTAGE  all 
revelations  prejudicial  to  the  interests  of  the 
capitalists. 

This  ingenious  way  of  driving  back  the  hosts 
of  human  exploitation  has  been  called  with  a 
special  name:  open  mouthed  sabotage.  The  ex- 
pression could  not  be  happier  or  more  significant. 


SABOTAGE  89 

How  many  are  there,  indeed,  who  have  built 
up  real  fortunes,  thanks  to  the  system  of  being 
silent  on  the  capitalist  robberies! 

Without  the  silence  of  the  exploited  that  help 
them  it  would  be  very  hard,  if  not  impossible,  for 
the  exploiters  to  manage  well  their  sordid  busi- 
ness. If  they  succeeded,  if  the  clients  fell  into 
their  traps  and  snares,  if  their  profits  from  a 
snow-ball  have  become  an  avalanche,  they  owe 
their  thanks  to  the  silence  of  their  employed. 

Well,  now,  these  mutes  of  the  commercial  and 
industrial  harems  are  getting  tired  of  keeping 
their  mouths  shut.  They  want  to  speak,  and 
what  they  have  to  say  is  of  such  a  nature  that  it 
will  create  a  void  around  their  masters. 

This  kind  of  SABOTAGE,  which  with  its  novel 
and  mild  methods,  may  nevertheless  become  as 
terrible  to  many  capitalists  as  the  rude  paralysis 
of  precious  instruments  of  production,  is  about 
to  have  the  greatest  diffusion. 

It  is  this  kind  of  SABOTAGE  which  often  the 
masons  resort  to  by  revealing  the  flaws  of  the 
building  they  have  finished — flaws  (or  frauds) 
ordered  by  the  contractor  to  his  exclusive  ad- 
vantage— walls  lacking  in  thickness,  bad  or  sec- 
ond-hand material,  subtraction  of  pieces  of  or- 
nament, etc. 


90  SABOTAGE 

"Open  mouthed"  also  the  workers  of  railway 
tracks  and  tunnels  who  will  henceforward  de- 
nounce the  criminal  defects  of  construction  and 
support. 

"Open  mouthed"  the  drug  clerks,  butchers, 
delicatessen  and  grocery  clerks  and  others  who, 
in  order  to  obtain  better  conditions  and  wages 
shall  proclaim  from  the  housetops  the  frauds 
and  trickeries  of  the  trade. 

"Open  mouthed"  the  bank  and  stock  exchange 
clerks  who  will  denounce  the  devious  and  sordid 
plans  and  operations  of  the  barons  of  finance. 

In  a  great  mass  meeting  held  last  July  by 
these  latter  in  Paris,  their  union  published  an 
official  resolution  in  which  "all  the  bank  and 
exchange  employes  are  called  upon  to  break  at 
last  their  professional  silence  and  reveal  to  the 
public  all  that  happens  in  those  dens  of  thieves 
which  are  the  financial  houses." 

At  this  point  we  must  ask  ourselves — what  will 
be  said  of  the  "open  mouthed"  device  by  the 
punctilious  moralists  who  condemn  SABOTAGE  in 
the  name  of  morality? 

Against  which  of  the  two  conflicting  parties 
will  they  hurl  their  anathemas — the  employers 
or  the  employes? 

Against    the    employers — thieves,    defaulters, 


SABOTAGE  91 

burglars  and  poisoners  who  want  to  associate  the 
workers  in  their  crimes,  or  against  the  employs 
who,  by  refusing  to  aid  and  abet  the  dishonest 
and  scoundrelly  practices  of  their  exploiters,  set 
their  own  conscience  free  and  put  the  consumer 
on  his  guard? 


V. 

THE  VARIOUS  METHODS  OF  SABOTAGE.  CARNEGIE 
AND  SABOTAGE.  THE  INSUFFICIENCY  OF  THE 
STRIKE.  INTELLIGENT  PARALYZATION  VERSUS 
STUPID  DESTRUCTION.  THE  END  OF  SCABBERY. 
A  QUESTION  OF  LIFE  AND  DEATH.  THE  CAR- 
MEN'S SABOTAGE.  TAILORS  AND  FURRIERS. 
RAILROAD  MEN  AND  TELEGRAPHERS.  INFINITE 
VARIETIES  OF  SABOTAGE. 

Up  to  this  point  we  have  examined  the  various 
methods  of  SABOTAGE  adopted  by  the  working 
class  without  a  stoppage  of  work  and  without 
abandoning  the  shop  and  factory.  But  SABOTAGE 
is  not  confined  to  this — it  may  become  and  is 
gradually  becoming  a  powerful  aid  in  case  of 
strike.  The  multi-millionaire  Carnegie,  the  iron 
king,  has  written  that  "to  suppose  that  a  man 
who  is  defending  his  wages  and  his  necessities  of 
life  will  sit  peacefully  while  another  is  being  put 
in  his  place  is  to  suppose  too  much." 

This  is  exactly  what  the  syndicalists  (industrial 
unionists)  never  cease  to  preach,  repeat  and  pro- 
claim. 

92 


SABOTAGE  93 

But  there  is  no  deafer  man  than  he  who  does 
not  want  to  hear,  and  the  capitalists  belong  to 
this  category. 

The  same  remark  of  millionaire  Carnegie  has 
been  paraphrased  by  citizen  Bousquet,  secretary 
of  the  Paris  Bakers'  Union,  in  an  article  in  "La 
Voix  du  Peuple." 

"We  may  state" — writes  Bousquet — "that  the 
simple  stoppage  of  work  is  not  sufficient  to 
realize  the  aims  of  a  strike. 

"It  is  necessary,  indeed  indispensable,  to  in- 
sure a  good  result  of  the  conflict — that  the  tools, 
instruments,  utensils,  machines  and  other  means 
of  production  of  the  shop,  mill,  mine,  factory, 
oven,  etc.,  also  go  on  strike — or  in  other  words, 
that  they  be  put  in  a  "non-running  condition." 
The  scabs  often  go  to  work  and  find  these  ma- 
chines, tools,  ovens,  etc.,  in  good  condition,  and 
this  through  the  supreme  mistake  of  the  strikers 
who,  having  left  in  "good  health"  these  means 
of  production,  have  fatally  left  behind  them  the 
first  reason  of  their  failure. 

"Now  to  go  on  strike  leaving  in  a  normal 
working  state  the  machines  and  other  instru- 
ments of  labor  simply  means  so  much  time  lost 
for  a  successful  struggle. 

"Accordingly  the  bosses,  who  can  always  rely 
on  the  scabs,  the  army  and  the  police,  will  con- 
tinue to  run  the  machines  *  *  *  and  half 
the  strike  will  be  lost. 

"The  most  important  part  of  a  strike,  there- 


94  SABOTAGE 

fore,  precedes  the  strike  itself  and  consists  in 
reducing  to  a  powerless  condition  the  working 
instruments.  It  is  the  A  B  C  of  economic  war- 
fare. 

"It  is  only  then  that  the  game  between  masters 
and  workers  is  straight  and  fair,  as  it  is  clear 
that  only  then  the  complete  cessation  of  work 
becomes  real  and  produces  the  designed  results, 
i.  e.,  the  complete  arrest  of  labor  activity  within 
the  capitalist  shop. 

"Is  a  strike  contemplated  by  the  most  in- 
dispensable workers — those  of  the  alimentary 
trades?  A  quart  of  kerosene  or  other  greasy 
and  malodorous  matter  poured  or  smeared  on 
the  level  of  an  oven  *  *  *  and  welcome 
the  scabs  and  scabby  soldiers  who  come  to  bake 
the  bread !  The  bread  will  be  uneatable  because 
the  stones  will  give  the  bread  for  at  least  a 
month  the  foul  odor  of  the  substance  they  have 
absorbed.  Results:  A  useless  oven. 

"Is  a  strike  coming  in  the  iron,  steel,  copper 
or  any  other  mineral  industry? 

"A  little  sand  or  emery  powder  in  the  gear  of 
those  machines  which  like  fabulous  monsters 
mark  the  exploitation  of  the  workers,  and  they 
will  become  palsied  and  useless. 

"The  iron  ogre  will  become  as  helpless  as  a 
nursling  and  with  it  the  scab.  .  .  ." 

A.  Renault,  a  clerk  in  the  Western  Railroad, 
has  touched  on  the  same  argument  in  his  volume 
"Syndicalism  in  the  Railroads,"  an  argument 


SABOTAGE  95 

which  cost  him  his  position  at  a  trial  in  which  the 
commission  acted  as  a  court  martial.  "To  be 
sure  of  success,"  explained  Renault,  "in  case  that 
all  railroad  workers  do  not  quit  their  work  at 
once — it  is  indispensable  that  a  strategem  of 
which  it  is  useless  to  give  here  the  definition  be 
instantaneously  and  simultaneously  applied  in  all 
important  centers  as  soon  as  the  strike  is  de- 
clared. 

"For  this  it  would  be  necessary  that  pickets  of 
comrades  determined  to  prevent  at  any  cost  the 
circulation  of  trains  be  posted  in  every  important 
center  and  locality.  It  would  be  well  to  choose 
those  workers  amongst  the  most  skilled  and  ex- 
perienced, such  as  could  find  the  weak  points  off- 
hand without  committing  acts  of  stupid  destruc- 
tion, who  by  their  open  eyed,  cautious  and  intel- 
ligent action  as  well  as  energetic  and  efficacious 
skill,  would  by  a  single  stroke  disable  and  render 
useless  for  some  days  the  material  necessary  to 
the  regular  performance  of  the  service  and  the 
movement  of  the  trains.  It  is  necessary  to  do  this 
seriously.  It  is  well  to  reckon  beforehand  with 
the  scabs  and  the  military.  .  .  ." 

This  tactic  which  consists  in  reinforcing  with 
the  strike  of  the  machinery  the  strike  of  the  arms 
would  appear  low  and  mean — but  it  is  not  so. 

The  class  conscious  toilers  well  know  that  they 
are  but  a  minority  and  they  fear  that  their  com- 
rades have  not  the  grit  and  energy  to  resist  to 


96  SABOTAGE 

the  end.  Therefore,  in  order  to  check  desertion 
and  cut  off  the  retreat  to  the  mass,  they  burn  the 
bridges  behind  them. 

This  result  is  obtained  "By  taking  away  from 
the  too  submissive  workers  the  instrument  of 
their  labor — that  is  to  say  by  paralyzing  the  ma- 
chine which  made  their  efforts  fruitful  and  re- 
numerative. 

In  this  way  treason  is  avoided  and  the  de- 
serters are  prevented  from  treating  with  the 
enemy  and  resuming  work  before  the  due  time. 

Another  point  contends  in  favor  of  this  tactic. 

As  Bousquet  and  Renault  have  remarked,  the 
strikers  have  not  only  to  reckon  with  the  scabs, 
they  must  also  mistrust  the  army.  In  fact,  the 
habit  of  replacing  the  strikers  with  the  soldiers  is 
becoming  more  and  more  systematic.  Thus,  in 
a  strike  of  bakers,  electricians,  railroad  workers, 
etc.,  the  government  immediately  steps  in  to  cut 
its  sinews  and  break  it  by  having  the  military  take 
the  place  of  the  rebellious  workers,  and  the  prac- 
tice has  reached  such  an  extent  that  to  thor- 
oughly systematize  it  the  government  in  the  case 
of  electricians  has  specialized  a  division  of  the 
signal  corps  to  the  running  of  the  power  houses 
and  the  handling  of  machinery  moved  by  elec- 
tricity— and  the  soldiers  are  always  ready  to 


SABOTAGE  97 

"report  for  duty"  at  the  first  symptoms  of  a 
strike  in  the  electrical  industry. 

It  is  consequently  evident  that  if  the  strikers 
who  are  aware  of  the  government  intentions, 
should  fail,  before  stopping  work,  to  parry  and 
foil  the  thrust  of  military  intervention  by  making 
it  impossible  and  ineffective — they  would  lose 
their  fight  at  its  very  inception. 

They  would,  indeed,  be  guilty  of  an  unpardon- 
able mistake,  if  having  forseen  the  danger  they 
had  not  remedied  it  on  time.  If  they  do,  it  hap- 
pens then  that  they  are  immediately  accused  of 
vandalism  and  condemned  for  their  lack  of  re- 
spect toward  the  machine  and  the  tool.  This 
criticism  would  be  just  if  in  the  worker's  mind 
there  were  a  preconceived  and  systematic  inten- 
tion of  deteriorating  the  machinery  without  any 
reason  or  provocation  and  without  a  definite  aim, 
but  this  is  not  the  case.  If  the  workers  disable 
the  machines  it  is  neither  for  a  whim  nor  for 
dilettantism  or  evil  mind  but  solely  in  obedience 
to  an  imperious  necessity.  It  should  not  be  for- 
gotten that  for  many  workers  in  the  majority  of 
strikes  it  is  a  question  of  life  and  death.  If  they 
do  not  paralyze  the  machines  they  surely  go  on  to 
unavoidable  defeat,  to  the  wreck  of  all  their 
hopes.  On  the  other  hand  by  applying  sabotage 


98  SABOTAGE 

the  workers  will  surely  call  upon  them  the  curses 
and  insults  of  the  bourgeoisie — but  will  also  in- 
sure to  themselves  many  great  probabilities  of 
success. 

Taking  into  account  the  sum  of  the  interests 
at  play,  it  is  easy  to  understand  why  the  work- 
ing class  takes  so  lightly  the  anathemas  of  inter- 
ested and  polluted  public  opinion — and  we  find 
it  but  logical  that  the  fear  of  being  condemned 
by  capitalists  and  their  allies  does  not  detain 
them  from  an  ingenious  and  bold  action  which 
almost  guarantees  them  victory. 

The  workers  find  themselves  in  a  position 
about  similar  to  that  of  a  retreating  army  which, 
being  pursued  by  the  enemy,  decides  to  destroy 
accoutrements,  arms  and  provisions  that  would 
hamper  them  in  their  march  and  possibly  fall 
into  the  hands  of  the  enemy.  In  such  a  case — 
destruction  is  legitimate  and  wise — whilst  in 
another  case  it  would  be  sheer  folly.  On  the 
strength  of  the  same  argument  no  one  can  pos- 
sibly blame  the  workers  who  resort  to  sabotage 
in  order  to  gain  a  victory  for  themselves.  In 
fine,  we  can  say  of  sabotage  what  has  been  said 
of  all  tactics  and  all  weapons:  The  end  justi- 
fies the  means. 

It  is  just  in  obedience  to  this  irresistible  ne- 


SABOTAGE  99 

cessity  that  the  carmen  of  Lyons  some  years 
ago  poured  cement  into  the  tracks  of  the  switches 
thus  preventing  the  circulation  of  the  tramways 
manned  by  scabs. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  the  railroad  work- 
ers of  Medoc  who  went  on  strike  in  July,  1908. 
Before  quitting  work  they  took  care  to  cut  the 
telegraph  wires  between  the  various  stations 
and  when  the  company  tried  how  best  it  could 
to  reorganize  the  service  it  was  found  that 
from  the  pumps  of  water  reserves  the  screws 
and  bolts  had  been  taken  off  and  hidden  some- 
where. 

A  clever  system  of  SABOTAGE  was  adopted  in 
Philadelphia  by  the  workers  of  a  great  fur  fac- 
tory. Before  stopping  work  the  cutters  were 
instructed  by  their  union  to  alter  the  size  of  the 
patterns  on  which  the  clients'  fur  coats  had  to 
be  made.  Every  cutter  followed  this  advice  and 
reduced  by  some  one-third  of  an  inch  all  the 
patterns  he  could  lay  his  hands  on.  The  strike 
was  called  and  the  boss,  naturally,  began  to  hire 
scabs — but  strange  enough,  the  strikers  did  not 
seem  to  be  excited  and  left  them  alone. 

Imagine  the  surprise  and  rage  of  the  boss 
when  he  at  last  found  out  that  not  one  single 
garment  was  of  the  right  size  and  shape.  After 


100  SABOTAGE 

having  spent  a  goodly  pile  of  dollars,  the  furrier 
was  compelled  to  give  in  to  his  former  em- 
ployes, who,  upon  resuming  work  readjusted 
and  repaired  their  patterns  as  before. 

No  one  has  yet  forgotten  the  formidable  cha- 
otic disorganization  provoked  in  the  spring  of 
1909  by  the  postal  telegraphers'  strike  in  France. 
This  strike  astounded  a  number  of  bourgeois, 
voluntarily  short-sighted  men,  who  overlook  all 
social  symptoms,  even  the  most  pronounced. 

These  worthy  gentlemen  would  have  been 
much  less  stupified  had  they  read  what  "Le  Cri 
Postal,"  organ  of  the  Postmen  and  Telegraphers' 
Union,  had  published  in  April,  1907. 

"You  want  to  crush  our  organization  to  pre- 
vent us  from  bettering  our  class  *  *  *  but 
what  you  will  never  be  able  to  prevent  is  that 
some  fine  day  the  letters  and  telegrams  from 
Lille  take  a  little  stroll  around  Patpignan. 

"What  you  cannot  avoid  is  that  the  telephone 
wires  be  simultaneously  tangled  and  the  tele- 
graphic instruments  take  strange  and  unex- 
plainable  fits.  What  you  will  never  prevent  is 
that  ten  thousand  workers  remain  at  their  places, 
but  with  their  arms  crossed — what  you  cannot 
forbid  is  that  ten  thousand  men  all  file  in  the 
same  day,  at  the  same  hour,  a  petition  for  re- 
tirement, and  stop  working  unanimously. 


SABOTAGE  101 

"And — worse  than  all — what  you  absolutely 
cannot  do,  is  to  replace  them  with  your  sol- 
diers. *  *  *" 

Some  years  ago  the  bill  posters  of  a  Parisian 
corporation,  having  had  their  wages  cut,  retali- 
ated by  increasing  the  paste  used  for  their  work 
and  by  adding  to  it  a  two-cent  tallow  candle. 

This  work  proceeded  marvelously.  The  pla- 
cards and  bills  were  posted  in  as  fine  and  care- 
ful a  way  as  never  before.  Only  after  two  hours, 
when  the  paste  dried,  they  fell  to  the  ground  and 
the  whole  thing  had  to  be  done  over  again.  The 
boss,  having  at  last  solved  the  puzzle,  regretted 
his  cowardly  action.  To  list  out  the  thousand 
of  methods  and  ways  of  sabotage  would  be  an 
endless  rosary.  The  shoe  workers  have  an  in- 
finite variety  of  tricks;  so  have  the  bakers.  To 
the  timber  workers  it  cannot  be  difficult  to  use 
the  axe  so  that  the  tree  or  log  is  split  in  all  its 
length.  To  the  painters  also  it  must  be  easy  to 
dilute  or  condense  their  colors  as  best  they  see 
fit.  But  the  record  of  sabotage  is  held  by  the 
masons,  who  since  1906  have  used  it  abundantly. 

For  instance,  the  case  is  not  rare  when,  after 
a  six-story  building  is  complete,  it  is  found  out 
that  the  chimneys  do  not  draw.  They  are  in- 
spected, and  it  is  found  out  that  they  are  ob- 


102  SABOTAGE 

structed;  more  or  less  accidentally,  a  trowel  full 
of  mortar  has  fallen  in  the  smoke  shaft. 

Elsewhere  another  accident — some  fine  morn- 
ing upon  arriving  to  the  yard  they  find  a  wagon 
load  of  cement  or  stucco  abundantly  sprinkled 
over,  and  so  on. 

Our  good  friends,  the  varnishers,  next,  know 
very  well  how  to  treat  white  lead  with  a  special 
chemical  composition  so  that  after  a  few  hours 
all  sort  of  varnishes  appear  as  if  they  had  been 
done  with  lampblack.  • 

The  consequence  of  all  this  is  that  the  wages 
of  masons  and  painters  have  increased  while 
the  working  hours  have  been  reduced,  and  with 
them  the  overbearing  arrogance  of  the  bosses. 

We  hardly  need  speak  at  all  of  the  methods 
of  sabotage  in  the  printing  industry.  During 
the  last  strikes,  the  boss  printers  have  been  suf- 
ficiently rough-handled  and  had  ample  oppor- 
tunity to  appraise  the  cost  of  printed  matter 
full  of  errors,  ink  spots,  uncorrected  proofs, 
etc.,  of  compositions  upset  and  broken  up,  of 
full  pages  fallen  to  the  ground,  whole  cases  of 
types  mixed  up  and  confused,  linotypes  which 
would  not  run,  presses  seized  by  rheumatism  and 
gout,  and  so  forth. 

All  this  was  the  clumsy  and  awkward  work 


SABOTAGE  103 

of  some  supposed  scabs  who  were  none  else  but 
the  strikers  themselves  who  were  * 
scabbing  for  the  purpose  of  saboting  the  boss 
into  submission.  Passing  from  the  industrial  to 
the  commercial  field,  sabotage  consists  here  in 
safeguarding  the  interests  of  the  customers  and 
clients  instead  of  taking  to  heart  that  of  the 
boss.  For  instance,  in  the  line  of  alimentary 
merchandise,  the  drug  clerk,  butcher,  grocery 
clerk,  etc.,  will  give  the  customers  the  right 
-weight  instead  of  giving  to  the  scale  tne  pro- 
fessional snap  of  the  finger. 

We  could  cite  many  more  instances  and  means, 
but  as  we  are  not  writing  a  technical  treatise 
on  sabotage,  we  believe  it  unnecessary  t3  deal 
here  with  all  the  forms  of  sabotage — which  are 
many  and  complex — that  can  be  and  often  are 
applied  by  the  revolting  workers. 

Those  that  we  have  already  quoted  are  more 
than  sufficient  to  emphasize  the  efficiency  and 
mark  the  characteristics  of  sabotage. 


VI. 

PROLETARIAN  SABOTAGE  AND  CAPITALISTIC  SAB- 
OTAGE. THE  SABOTERS  OF  THE  MILK.  SABO- 
TERS  OF  THE  MlLLS.  SABOTERS  OF  IRON  AND 
STEEL.  THE  GREAT  CONTRACTORS  OF  THE 
FATHERLAND.  FROM  THE  WORKERS'  SABOTAGE 
DROPS  THE  GOLD  OF  THE  BOURGEOISIE.  FROM 
THE  CAPITALIST  SABOTAGE  OOZES  OUT  HU- 
MAN BLOOD. 

As  we  have  stated,  in  examining  the  various 
systems  of  proletarian  sabotage,  under  what- 
ever form  and  at  whatever  moment  it  manifests 
itself,  its  chief  characteristic  consists — absolute- 
ly always — in  hitting  at  the  bosses'  pocketbook. 
For  the  workers'  sabotage  which  is  aimed  only 
at  the  means  of  exploitation — against  the  ma- 
chines and  the  tools,  that  is  against  inert,  pain- 
less and  lifeless  things — the  bourgeoisie  has  noth- 
ing but  curses  and  maledictions.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  detractors  and  slanderers  of  the  work- 
ing class  were  never  scandalized  and  never  show 
any  anger  against  another  sort  of  sabotage  truly 

104 


SABOTAGE  105 

criminal,  monstrous  and  abominable,  which  is  the 
very  life  essence  of  modern  society :  the  sabotage 
of  the  capitalists  which  reaps  human  victims  and 
deprives  men  of  their  health  by  sticking  like  a 
leech  at  the  very  sources  of  life. 

This  bourgeois  impassiveness  and  indifference 
to  this  sort  of  sabotage  which  is  actually  crim- 
inal arises  from  the  fact  that  the  bourgeoisie 
draws  most  of  its  profits  from  it. 

Saboters  are  the  farmers  and  traders  who,  by 
adulterating  the  milk,  chief  nourishment  of  child- 
hood, sap  the  very  root  of  the  growing  genera- 
tion. 

Saboters  are  the  millers  and  boss  bakers  who, 
by  mixing  talcum,  chalk  or  other  cheap  but 
harmful  ingredients  with  flour,  adulterate  the 
bread,  a  nourishment  of  first  necessity. 

Saboters  the  manufacturers  of  chocolate  made 
with  palm  and  cocoa  oil. 

Saboters  the  manufacturers  and  sellers  of  cof- 
fee mixed  with  starch,  chickory  and  acorns. 

Saboters  the  grocers  who  sell  pulverized  pep- 
per made  with  almond  shells  and  olive  stones. 

Saboters  the  confectioners  who  sell  glucose 
taffy,  creams  made  with  vaseline,  honey  with 
starch  and  chestnut  meal. 


106  SABOTAGE 

Saboters  the  manufacturers  of  vinegar  made 
with  sulphuric  acid. 

Saiboters  the  dairymen  who  sell  cheese  made 
of  starch  and  butter  of  margarine. 

Saboters  the  brewers  whose  beer  is  distilled 
from  corn  leaves. 

Saboters  the  great  patriotic  and  public-spirited 
contractors  of  the  great  army  supplies,  who 
make  shoes  with  paper  soles,  cartridges  with  coal 
dust  and  who  sell  fermented  wheat,  rotten  canned 
goods,  etc. 

Saboters  the  iron  and  steel  barons  who  build 
the  powerful  boilers  of  the  warships  with  cracks 
and  weak  spots  that  will  cause  their  explosion 
and  the  murder  of  thousands. 

Saboters  the  great  importers  of  meat  from 
clandestine  abottoirs  where  tuberculous  cattle  are 
slaughtered. 

Saboters  the  building  and  railway  contractors, 
the  furniture  makers,  the  manufacturers  of 
chemicals  and  fertilizers — in  short,  all  the  cap- 
tains of  industry  of  any  caliber,  cut  and  make. 
All  saboters — all,  without  one  single  exception, 
because  all  trick,  fake,  adulterate,  defraud  and 
swindle. 

Sabotage    reigns    supreme    in    the    capitalist 


SABOTAGE  107 

world;  it  is  everywhere — in  industry,  commerce, 
agriculture. 

Now,  this  sort  of  capitalist  sabotage  which 
saturates  the  present  society  and  constitutes  the 
element  in  which  this  society  breathes,  as  we 
breathe  In  the  oxygen  of  the  air,  this  sort  of 
sabotage  which  will  only  disappear  with  the 
downfall  of  capitalist  society  itself,  is  much  more 
damnable  than  the  sabotage  of  the  workers. 

The  latter — it  is  well  to  emphasize  the  point — 
hits  capital  only  in  the  bank  account,  whilst  the 
former  strikes  at  the  sources  of  human  life, 
ruins  the  health  of  the  people  and  fills  the  hos- 
pitals and  the  cemeteries.  From  the  wounds 
produced  by  the  proletarian  sabotage  only  gold 
flows  out.  From  those  inflicted  by  the  capitalist 
sabotage,  it  is  human  blood  which  gushes  out  in 
streams. 

The  workers'  sabotage  is  inspired  by  generous 
and  altruistic  principles.  It  is  a  shield  of  de- 
fense and  protection  against  the  usuries  and 
vexations  of  the  bosses ;  it  is  the  weapon  of  the 
disinherited  who,  whilst  he  struggles  for  his 
family's  existence  and  his  own,  aims  also  to  bet- 
ter the  social  conditions  of  his  class  and  to  de- 
liver it  from  the  exploitation  that  strangles  and 
crushes  it. 


108  SABOTAGE 

It  is  the  ferment  of  a  better  life. 

The  capitalist  sabotage,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
nothing  but  a  means  of  increasing  exploitation 
and  profits.  It  does  nothing  but  whet  the  raven- 
ous appetites  of  the  exploiters,  that  are  never 
satisfied. 

It  is  the  expression  of  a  loathsome  voracity, 
of  an  unquenchable  thirst  of  riches  which  does 
not  even  stop  at  crime! 


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GINNERS. 

Industrial  Socialism,  by  William  D.  Hay- 
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the  whole  subject  of  Socialism  from  the  point 
of  view  of  the  latest  industrial  development. 
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Shop  Talks  on  Economics,  by  Mary  E. 
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to  the  study  of  economics.  It  has  been  revised 
from  the  lessons  that  have  appeared  in  the  IN- 
TERNATIONAL SOCIALIST  REVIEW.  The  classic 
works  of  Marx  and  other  great  writers  on  eco- 
nomics are  not  for  the  beginner.  But  no  one 
can  understand  the  Socialist  Movement  until 
he  understands  value,  price  and  profit  as  ex- 
plained by  Socialists.  Shop  Talks  on  Econom- 
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The  Strength  of  the  Strong,  by  Jack  London, 

completes  our  list  of  new  books  for  beginners. 


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Our  comrade  novelist  has  written  this  fasci- 
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How  Capitalism  Has  Hypnotized  Society,  by 
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•  SOCIALIST   BOOKS 

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SOME  SOCIALIST  CLASSICS  FOR  TEN 
CENTS  EACH. 

The  Communist  Manifesto,  by  Marx  and 
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Value,  Price  and  Profit,  by  Marx. 

Socialism,  Utopian  and  Scientific,  by  Engels. 

No  Compromise,  by  Liebknecht. 

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Movement  has  it  been  more  essential  to  dis- 
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oooklets,  he  should  be  impressed  with  the  ne- 
cessity of  carefully  studying  all  of  the  above 
mentioned  classics.  Kautsky's  "Class  Strug- 
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in  the  order  given. 

INDUSTRIAL  UNIONISM. 

This  subject  is  now  of  crucial  importance  in 
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It  cannot  be  evaded.  A  satisfactory  solution 
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Industrial  Socialism,  by  William  D.  Hay- 
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conditions.  It  shows  the  revolutionary  mis- 
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One  Big  Union,  by  William  E.  Trautmann. 
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Industrial  Union  Methods,  by  William  E. 
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PAMPHLETS  BY  EUGENE  V.  DEBS. 

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Capital,  by  Karl  Marx,  Vol.      I.     Cloth,  $2.00. 

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10  SOCIALIST  BOOKS 

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Ethics  and  the  Materialistic  Conception  of 
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The  Class  Struggle,  by  Karl  Kautsky.  Cloth, 
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standingly  on  the  subject  of  Socialism. 

GUSTAVUS  MYERS'  HISTORY  OF  THE 
GREAT  AMERICAN  FORTUNES. 

During  the  past  two  years  Charles  H.  Kerr 
&  Company  have  published  what  is  now  rec- 
ognized as  being  the  most  important  contribu- 
tion thus  far  made  to  the  literature  of  Amer- 
ican Socialism.  Mr.  Myers'  three-volume  work 
startled  every  class  in  American  society.  It 
was  written  after  long  and  careful  research 
among  the  original  sources. 

Mr.  Myers  shows  that  the  great  American 
fortunes,  those  of  Rockefeller  and  Morgan,  of 
the  Vanderbilts  and  the  Goulds,  were  secured 
through  outright  robbery,  the  meanest  kind 
of  swindling  and  unlimited  corruption  of  pub- 
lic officials.  The  scientific  and  scholarly  na- 
ture of  this  work  helps  to  make  it  one  of  the 
greatest  pieces  of  Socialist  propaganda  ever 
produced.  It  is  unanswerable.  It  convicts 
American  Capitalism.  It  is  a  big  gun  to  be 


15>  SOCIALIST  BOOKS 

placed  upon  the  firing  line  of  the  Movement. 
No  Socialist  nor  other  well-informed  citizen 
should  be  without  it. 

Volume  I  treats  of  economic  conditions  in 
the  colonial  period  of  the  United  States  and 
of  the  origin  of  the  great  land  fortunes, 
notably  the  Astor  and  Marshall  Field  estates. 
Cloth,  illustrated,  $1.50. 

Volume  II  begins  the  story  of  Great  For- 
tunes from  Railroads,  most  of  its  space  being 
Devoted  to  the  Vanderbilts  and  Goulds.  Cloth, 
Ululated,  $1.50. 

Volume  III  continues  the  story  of  Railroad 
Fortunes,  and  deals  with  Russell  Sage,  Stephen 
B.  Elkins,  James  J.  Hill,  J.  Pierpont  Morgan 
and  other  magnates.  Cloth,  illustrated,  $1.50. 

The  Life,  Writings  and  Speeches  of  Eugene 
V.  Debs  is  another  work  of  importance  of 
which  we  need  not  emphasize.  This  volume 
includes  the  cream  of  the  speeches  and  writ- 
ings of  the  most  distinguished  of  American 
Socialists.  Cloth,  illustrated,  $1.00. 

We  have  two  other  works  which  do  not  per- 
mit of  easy  classification.  However,  we  wish 
to  emphasize  their  importance. 

Ancient  Society,  by  Lewis  H.  Morgan.  Of 
this  American  classic  in  sociology  we  have 
sold  five  thousand  copies.  This  work  was 
known  and  recognized  and  the  author  honored 
by  none  other  than  Frederick  Engels.  A 
thorough  understanding  of  the  evolution  of 


SOCIALIST  BOOKS  13 

primitive  man  is  required  as  a  sound  basis  for 
Socialist  education.  The  Socialist  student 
should  read  Morgan's  Ancient  Society  before 
he  takes  up  Marx's  Capital.  Cloth,  $1.50. 

The  Art  of  Lecturing,  by  Arthur  M.  Lewis. 

The  growth  of  the  Socialist  Movement  is  call- 
ing hundreds  of  our  comrades  to  the  propa- 
ganda and  lecture  platforms.  Comrade  Lewis' 
little  work  on  the  art  of  lecturing  has  proven 
most  helpful  to  many  who  have  lacked  specific 
training  in  public  speaking.  The  work  places 
the  finger  of  criticism  upon  the  weak  points 
which  are  common  among  working  class  So- 
cialist speakers.  Cloth,  50  cents. 

FOR  THE  SOCIALIST  STUDENT. 
American  Communities  and  Co-operative 
Colonies,  by  William  Alfred  Hinds,  Ph.  B. 
Second  revision,  including  one-half  more 
matter  than  any  previous  edition.  Thirty- 
three  full-page  illustrations.  Cloth,  608  pages, 
$1.50. 

The  Ancient  Lowly,  by  C.  Osborne  Ward. 

A  history  of  the  Ancient  Working  People 
from  the  Earliest  Known  Period  to  the  Adop- 
tion of  Christianity  by  Constantine.  This 
work  represents  a  lifetime  of  research  and 
proves  that  Christianity  was  originally  a  labor 
movement.  Cloth,  two  volumes,  $2.00  each. 

The   American   Farmer,   by   A.   M.   Simons. 

Cloth,   50  cents. 


14  SOCIALIST  BOOKS 

Barbarous  Mexico,  by  John  Kenneth  Turner. 
This  remarkable  work  was  said  by  some  capi- 
talist newspapers  to  have  precipitated  the  Mex- 
ican Revolution.  It  is  a  clear  and  truthful 
narrative  of  conditions  in  Mexico  before  the 
overthrow  of  the  tyrant,  Diaz.  It  is  especially 
interesting  to  Americans,  because  it  exposes 
the  crimes  perpetrated  in  Mexico  by  the  great 
American  capitalists.  The  book  was  written 
after  long  and  careful  examination  of  the  facts 
on  the  part  of  the  author.  Therefore  it  has  a 
permanent  historical  value.  Cloth,  illustrated 
with  photographs,  $1.50. 

The  Biology  of  British  Politics,  by  Charles 
H.  Harvey.  Cloth,  50  cents. 

Britain  for  the  British,  by  Robert  Blatch- 
ford.  Cloth,  50  cents. 

Capitalist  and  Laborer,  by  John  Spargo. 
Cloth,  50  cents. 

The  Changing  Order,  by  Oscar  Lovell 
Triggs,  Ph.  D.  A  study  of  Democracy,  of  the 
coming  revolution,  and  of  the  ways  in  which 
the  future  self-rule  of  the  working  class  may 
be  expected  to  react  upon  literature  and  art, 
upon  philosophy  and  religion,  upon  work  and 
play.  Cloth,  $1.00. 

Class  Struggles  in  America,  by  A.  M.  Simons. 
A  condensed  summary  of  the  history  of  the 
United  States,  showing  the  important  part  con- 


SOCIALIST  BOOKS  !& 

stantly  played  by  the  struggles  between  rival 
economic  classes.  Cloth,  50  cents. 

The  Common  Sense  of  Socialism,  by  John 
Spargo.  Cloth,  $1.00. 

The  Communist  Manifesto  in  English  and 
Esperanto.  Cloth,  50  cents. 

The  End  of  the  World,  by  Dr.  M.  Wilhelm 
Meyer,  translated  by  Margaret  Wagner.  A 
popular  scientific  volume  telling  of  earth- 
quakes and  other  destructive  forces  that  will 
some  day  put  an  end  to  life  on  the  earth.  Il- 
lustrated. Cloth,  50  cents. 

Evolution,  Social  and  Organic,  by  Arthur 
M.  Lewis.  The  first  volume  of  lectures  de- 
livered at  the  Garrick  Theater,  Chicago.  These 
lectures  show  how  Socialism  is  the  logical 
outcome  of  evolutionary  science,  and  trace 
the  growth  of  this  science  from  ancient  times 
to  the  present.  Cloth,  50  cents. 

The  Evolution  of  Man,  by  Wilhelm  Boelsche. 
Strictly  up-to-date,  utilizing  facts  discovered 
since  Darwin's  death,  yet  easy  and  simple 
enough  for  an  intelligent  ten-year-old.  Trans- 
lated by  Ernest  Untermann.  Cloth,  illustrated, 
50  cents. 

Germs  of  Mind  in  Plants,  by  R.  H.  France. 
An  illustrated  book  full  of  interesting  proofs 
that  "mind,"  so  far  from  being  limited  to  man, 
is  found  even  in  plants,  and  is  everywhere 
subject  to  physical  laws  that  no  "free  will" 
can  withstand.  Cloth,  50  cents. 


16 


SOCIALIST  BOOKS 


God  and  My  Neighbor,  by  Robert  Blatch- 
ford.  A  critical  study  of  the  Bible  from  the 
viewpoint  of  evolution.  Cloth,  $1.00. 

History  of  Anglo-American  Trade,  by  Sid- 
ney J.  Chapman.  Cloth,  50  cents. 

Industrial  Problems,  by  N.  A.  Richardson. 
Cloth,  $1.00. 

Last  Days  of  Ruskin  Colony,  by  Prof.  Isaac 
Broome.  Cloth,  50  cents. 

Life  and  Death,  by  Dr.  E.  Teichmann.  Cloth, 
50  cents. 

Looking  Forward,  a  Treatise  on  the  Status 
of  Woman  and  the  Origin  and  Growth  of  the 
Family  and  the  State,  by  Philip  Rappaport. 

Written  from  the  standpoint  of  Historical 
Materialism.  Contains  chapters  on  The  Fam- 
ily, Divorce,  The  State,  the  Modern  Economic 
System  and  the  probable  developments  of  the 
near  future.  Cloth,  $1.00. 

The  Making  of  the  World,  by  Dr.  M.  Wil- 
helm  Meyer.  Cloth,  50  cents. 

The  Marx  He  Knew,  by  John  Spargo.  Cloth, 
50  cents. 

Marx  vs.  Tolstoy,  Debate  by  Darrow  and 
Lewis.  Cloth,  50  cents. 

Marxian  Economics,  by  Ernest  Untermann. 
A  Popular  Introduction  to  the  Three  Volumes 
of  Marx's  "Capital."  This  book,  unlike  other 
introductions  to  Marx,  is  arranged  in  the 
form  of  a  connected  story  tracing  the  develop- 


SOCIALIST  BOOKS  17 

ment  of  production  from  savagery  through 
barbarism,  slavery  and  feudalism  into  modern 
capitalism.  This  enables  the  reader  better  to 
understand  Marx's  analysis  of  the  capitalism 
of  today.  Cloth,  $1.00. 

The  Passing  of  Capitalism,  by  Isador  Ladoff. 
Cloth,  50  cents. 

Physical  Basis  of  Mind  and.  Morals,  by  M. 
H.  Fitch.  A  most  interesting  and  valuable 
argument  starting  from  the  universally  ac- 
cepted writings  of  Darwin  and  Spencer,  and 
proving  that  "mind"  is  only  another  form  of 
"life,"  and  that  morals  are  the  necessary 
product  of  economic  conditions.  Cloth,  414 
pages,  $1.00. 

Principles  of  Scientific  Socialism,  by  Charles 
H.  Vail.  Cloth,  $1.00. 

The  Republic,  by  N.  P.  Andresen.  Cloth, 
$1.00. 

Revolutionary  Essays,  by  Peter  E.  Bur- 
rowes.  Cloth,  $1.00. 

Rise  of  the  American  Proletarian,  by  Austin 
Lewis.  An  industrial  history  of  the  United 
States  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  wage 
worker.  A  careful  reading  of  this  interesting 
book  will  help  the  reader  to  understand  the 
general  theory  of  the  materialistic  concep- 
tion of  history  and  apply  it  for  himself.  Cloth, 
$1.00. 

The  Russian  Bastile,  by  Simon  O.  Pollock. 
Cloth,  50  cents. 


18  SOCIALIST  BOOKS 

Science  and  Revolution,  by  Ernest  Unter- 
mann.  Cloth,  50  cents. 

Selections  from  the  Works  of  Fourier,  by 
Julia  Franklin.  Fourier  was  the  greatest  of 
the  Utopian  Socialists,  who  preceded  the 
modern  scientific  Socialist  movement.  His 
writings  are  of  great  importance  to  those  ^h,o 
wish  to  understand  the  history  of  the  begin- 
nings of  the  Socialist  movement.  Cloth,  50 
cents. 

Socialism  for  Students,  by  Jos.  K  Cohen.  A 
clear,  comprehensive  and  scientific  analysis  of 
the  Marxian  system,  with  suggestions  for  sup- 
plementary readings.  Cloth,  50  cents. 

Socialism,  Positive  and  Negative,  by  Robert 
Rives  La  Monte.  A  volume  of  brilliant  es- 
says that  will  serve  as  a  stimulus  to  clear 
thinking.  The  one  entitled  "The  Nihilism  of 
Socialism"  may  shock  the  sentimental  convert 
to  Socialism  from  the  "upper"  classes,  but  it 
will  do  him  good,  and  it  will  delight  the  drink- 
ing wage-worker.  Cloth,  50  cents. 

The  Socialists,  by  John  Spargo.  Cloth,  50 
cents. 

Ten  Blind  Leaders  of  the  Blind,  by  Arthur 
M.  Lewis.  Cloth,  50  cents. 

Whe  Theoretical  System  of  Karl  Marx,  by 
Louis  B.  Boudin.  A  systematic  treatise  show- 
in«  the  necessary  connection  of  the  principles 


SOCIALIST  BOOKS  1* 

of  Historical  Materialism,  the  Class  Struggle, 
Surplus  Value,  etc.,  and  answering  Marx's 
critics.  Cloth,  $1.00. 

Thoughts    of    a    Fool,    by    Evelyn    Gladys. 

Cloth,  $1.00. 

The  Triumph  of  Life,  by  Wilhelm  Boelsche. 
Cloth,  50  cents. 

Vital  Problems  in  Social  Evolution,  by 
Arthur  M.  Lewis.  Cloth,  50  cents. 

What's  So  and  What  Isn't,  by  John  M. 
Work.  Clear,  crisp,  incisive  answers  to  the 
stock  objections  to  Socialism.  Cloth,  50  cents. 

The  World's  Revolutions,  by  Ernest  Unter- 
mann.  A  series  of  historical  studies;  that  on 
the  Christian  Proletariat  and  Its  Mission  will 
be  of  especial  interest  to  those  who  care  to 
look  into  the  economic  conditions  underlying 
the  rapid  spread  of  Christianity  in  the  first 
centuries  of  the  Christian  era.  The  conclud- 
ing chapter,  on  "The  Proletarian  World 
Movement,"  is  an  admirable  statement  of  the 
aims  and  spirit  of  modern  socialism.  Cloth, 
50  cents. 


20  SOCIALIST  BOOKS 

REVOLUTIONARY    FICTION    AND 

CRITICISM. 

God's  Children,  by  James  Allman.  A  story 
telling  how  the  palaces  and  slums  of  England 
looked  to  a  messenger  from  heaven,  and  what 
God  said  when  he  received  the  report.  One 
chapter  contains  a  fine  soap-box  speech  de- 
livered on  a  London  corner.  Cloth,  50  cents. 

Goethe's  Faust,  by  Marcus  Hitch.  Shows 
that  the  ethics  of  great  poems  are  not  for  all 
time,  but  are  of  necessity  closely  related  to 
the  economic  structure  of  the  society  in  which 
the  poet  lives;  this  is  illustrated  from  Goethe's 
masterpiece.  Cloth,  50  cents. 

Gracia,  a  Social  Tragedy,  by  Frank  E.  Plum- 
mer.  Cloth,  $1.00. 

Human,  All  Too  Human,  by  Friedrich 
Nietzsche.  Cloth,  50  cents. 

Happy  Hunting  Grounds,  by  James  High- 
tower.  Cloth,  $1.00. 

Love's  Coming  of  Age,  by  Edward  Carpen- 
ter. One  of  the  most  charming  and  satisfac- 
tory books  ever  written  by  a  socialist  on  the 
relations  of  the  sexes.  Carpenter  is  scientist 
and  poet  in  one,  otherwise  he  could  not  have 
written  it.  Cloth,  $1.00. 

•  Out  of  the  Dump,  by  Mary  E.  Marcy.  Illus- 
trated with  eight  drawings  by  R.  H.  Chaplin. 
A  vivid  story,  intense  yet  brightened  wLU> 


SOCIALIST  BOOKS  21 

plenty  of  humor,  showing  the  working  people 
of  Chicago  as  they  are,  and  incidentally  expos- 
ing the  shams  of  Organized  Charity.  Cloth, 
50  cents. 

Perfecting  the  Earth,  by  Dr.  C.  W.  Wool- 
drige.  Cloth,  $1.00. 

Prince  Hagen,  by  Upton  Sinclair.  Cloth, 
$1.00. 

The  Rebel  at  Large,  by  May  Beals.  This 
volume  contains  seventeen  short  stories.  Jack 
London  says  this  boook  is  "full  of  the  fine 
spirit  of  revolt."  Just  the  book  to  give  a 
woman  of  the  working  class  who  does  not  yet 
realize  what  the  Revolution  will  do  for  *»er. 
Cloth,  50  cents. 

Rebels  of  the  New  South,  by  Walter  Marion 
Raymond.  The  Detroit  Times  calls  this  an 
attractive  story  in  which  lively  romarice  is 
artfully  mingled  with  the  doctrines  of  modern 
Socialism.  Cloth,  $1.00. 

The  Recording  Angel,  by  Edward  Arnold 
Brenholtz.  The  story  of  a  strike.  The  "angel" 
was  an  automatic  graphophone  that  took  down, 
some  remarks  by  a  capitalist  which  he  did  not 
intend  for  general  circulation.  Plenty  of  ac- 
tion and  enough  mystery  to  hold  the  reader 
tensely.  Cloth,  $1.00. 

The  Republic  of  Plato.  Translated  by  Alex- 
ander Kerr.  The  first  and  greatest  of  ajl  the 


SOCIALIST  BOOKS 

Utopias,  subtle  in  thought  and  charming  in 
style.  Many  competent  critics  agree  that 
Professor  Kerr's  version  is  the  most  read- 
able one  ever  published.  The  new  reader 
should  remember,  however,  that  Plato's  ethics 
are  mystical  and  his  ideals  quite  the  reverse 
of  democratic.  Seven  books  now  ready;  each, 
paper,  15  cents. 

The  Rose  Door,  by  Estelle  Baker.  Cloth, 
$1.00. 

The  Sale  of  an  Appetite,  by  Paul  Lafargue. 
A  modern  allegory  telling  of  a  starving  la- 
borer who  signed  a  contract  to  digest  a  fat 
capitalist's  food  for  him.  It  is  delightful  read- 
ing and  good  propaganda.  Cloth,  50  cents. 

Socialist  Songs,  Dialogs  and  Recitations,  by 
Josephine  R.  Cole.  Designed  especially  for 
children  and  young  people  desiring  to  ar- 
range for  Socialist  entertainments;  some  of  the 
selections  are  also  suitable  for  "pieces  to 
speak"  at  school.  Paper,  25  cents. 

Stories  of  the  Struggle,  by  Morris  Winchev- 
sky.  Cloth,  50  cents. 

Walt  Whitman:  The  Poet  of  the  Wider  Self- 
hood, by  Mila  Tupper  Maynard.  Cloth,  $1.00. 

When  Things  Were  Doing,  by  C.  A.  Steere. 

Cloth,  $1.00. 

Under  the  Lash,  a  Socialist  Play  by  C.  F. 
Quinn.  Paper,  25  cents. 


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